Madam Trebella frowned as she scanned over the completed inventory sheet, ignoring the apprentice fidgeting silently by the door as the girl waited to be dismissed. Despite the fact that she had so few apprentices left at this point, she still couldn’t be bothered to learn all their names.

  “This is everything?” She asked, a slight tinge of annoyance left purposefully in her tone to strike fear into the fledgling Witch’s heart. “How have we already run out of oawl wood again? Or night weed? I’ve ordered restocking missions to be sent out three times just this week alone!”

  Not even the sight of the apprentice jumping slightly was enough to cheer her up, and her scowl darkened as the young infernal tried to stammer out a response.

  “Apologies, Madam Trebella! I… I’m not sure where all the materials have gone. Maybe we just aren’t able to collect as much as we used to… Before the loss of levels I mean.” The infernal’s hand drifted up toward her head as she stammered, but she quickly caught herself and jerked her arms back down to her sides. This apprentice had a bad habit of still wanting to hold her horns whenever she got nervous, but she was well aware by now that such infantile behavior in front of Madam Trebella would result in nothing but more punishment.

  Madam Trebella stared at the twitching infernal, careful to keep her face a mask of annoyance and contemplation as the apprentice started to sweat. Yet on the inside, she swore, cursing the Gods for putting her in this blasted situation.

  Before the relocation Madam Trebella would have thrown this girl straight into a trial, either toughening the weak infernal up or ridding herself of such a feeble apprentice altogether. But now, after having lost so much of their former power…

  “I don’t recall asking for your opinion,” she snapped, eliciting a small squeak from the girl. Months ago, that would have given her no small semblance of pride. But now, it just made her feel all the more empty.

  “Just go,” she sighed, waving the girl away with the shockingly sparse inventory sheet. The apprentice’s eyes widened in surprise, but the girl wasn’t about to miss this opportunity, and she practically flew out the door before Madam Trebella could change her mind.

  Madam Trebella double checked to make sure the girl had closed her door before she let herself lean back in her chair, letting out a quiet groan. With Master Gunon gone and that idiot Master Morvas dead, she had become the new de facto leader of their people practically overnight. Which meant she had to keep up a strong front at all times.

  Even when it felt like everything was crumbling down all around her.

  Glancing at the inventory sheet a third time, Madam Trebella resisted the urge to crumple it into a ball and throw it away. Every time she finally felt like they were building up a respectable stockpile of ritual materials, something happened that dropped them back to square one.

  “That blasted divine warrior,” she cursed, picturing the man’s face in her mind. She would have preferred to try and get him to walk away peacefully, preferred to reason with him like sensible adults. But the moron had forced her hand, stating in no uncertain terms that he planned on killing all of them. Even now his words burned in her memory like eversmoke powder, refusing to go out.

  ‘By the decree of the Gods, you have been chosen! Rejoice, for in your sacrifice you shall contribute to something greater than you could possibly imagine! I ask that you lower your arms and willingly accept the blade of my God, to ensure that your passing is as quick and painless as possible!’

  Madam Trebella could only thank whatever twisted God had given that man power that it seemed to prevent him from launching any sort of surprise attack. If he’d come into their town and started cutting people down without declaring his intentions, there was a good chance he would have killed dozens of people before she’d been able to intervene.

  Giving a Witch time to prepare her rituals was a rather bold strategy.

  One that had not ended well for him.

  Granted, things hadn’t quite gone as she’d planned either. If she’d had access to her old power, she would have utterly eviscerated the man for daring to harm her people. Perhaps after she’d destroyed his mortal form she would have chained his soul to a piece of charcoal and used it to warm her study for the next few decades.

  As she was now, it had taken everything she had to simply drive the man off. Sure, she’d done a bit of damage and hit him with a curse or two as he fled, but she doubted anything as weak as what she currently wielded would stick for very long against someone with access to divinity.

  The bigger problem was that she’d had to delve deep into their already low stockpile of materials in order to cast all the rituals needed to best the warrior. Without Master Gunon and his elite Gatherers, her stockpiles were stagnant at their best, and floundering at their worst.

  Madam Trebella glanced over at the portrait of Master Gunon hanging up above her desk, the familiar pain of loss not having diminished in the slightest these past few months.

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  Master Gunon had been out delivering much needed supplies to one of the neighboring villages a good forty miles away when the relocation happened. Master Morvas had argued against him leaving during such a dangerous time with more monster attacks occurring with each passing month, but Master Gunon had maintained a firm stance that the only way they were all going to survive was to continue relying on one another.

  Madam Trebella had been split, but in the end, she’d voted to allow Master Gunon to leave, allowing the motion to pass two to one.

  She never saw him again.

  With Master Gunon gone along with their levels, the village had understandably been terrified. It had taken everything Madam Trebella had to rein in everyone’s fears and convince them everything would be okay.

  Unsurprisingly, Master Morvas had been no help at all. She’d thought being forced to share leadership of the village with Master Morvas of all people was some sort of personal hell designed just for her, but it turned out she wouldn’t have to worry about it for very long.

  The blasted Warlock had refused to accept his power being stolen from him, and after rushing his way through the early levels to his first prestige, he'd attempted a complex ritual behind her back with some of their most promising apprentices to try and fix whatever had been done to everyone.

  She had personally cleaned up what was left of Master Morvas and the apprentices after his ritual failed.

  Shuddering at the memory, Madam Trebella stood up and began making her way down to the sick bay to check on their guests. As an experienced Witch, she was no stranger to blood and carnage, but even she hadn’t seen a ritual fail that catastrophically in all her years.

  It was one thing to end up killing himself, but Master Morvas had dragged three apprentices brimming with potential down with him. The man’s hubris had been costly and left her with little more than…

  Opening the sick bay door, Madam Trebella stifled a sigh as she found Xaril sitting on one of the open cots, his face buried in one of his books like usual. The infernal didn’t seem perturbed in the slightest by the near comatose patients lying right beside him. The fact that he was now her top apprentice…

  “How are they faring, Xaril?” She asked, closing the door behind her and approaching the one with the pointy ears. The human had called her an elf, and she’d clearly been the one in the worst shape when they’d arrived.

  “No idea,” Xaril said without looking up, turning to the next page.

  Madam Trebella bit back the urge to lash out and slap the boy across the back of the head. She’d tried that in the past, along with every other method of punishment known to her, and she knew first hand that none of it would do her any good. The boy was like an empty shell filled solely with words from his books, devoid of any feelings or cares of his own. He seemed interested in studying and little else, and she would have gotten rid of him years ago if he wasn’t so damn good at ritual magic.

  “I thought I tasked you with monitoring them and coming to me if there were any changes,” she said, checking the elf’s temperature and the color of the burns on her skin. Everything seemed the same at the very least, which meant the ritual was holding. Because the ritual had encompassed the four of them, if either the human or the rat perished, the remaining crystals would shatter as well, releasing everyone at the same time. The fact that these two were still stable meant that miraculously the boy hadn’t lost his life in that monster infested cave just yet.

  “You did,” Xaril nodded, continuing to read. “Seeing as I didn’t come to you, you should be able to deduce that there weren’t any changes.”

  Madam Trebella closed her eyes for a moment, silently counting to five. She had to remind herself that as much as Xaril grated on her, she couldn’t afford to dispose of any of the few tools at her disposal right now. Not when they were struggling so.

  Half the time she wondered if the boy was actually some sort of political genius, knowing exactly what position she was in and enjoying the act of taunting her.

  The other half the time he’d get so invested in his books he’d forget to eat for two days straight, and she’d remember he was just an uncaring idiot.

  “If by some miracle the human actually manages to survive and bring back the materials needed for the purification ritual, I’ll need your help to successfully prepare it,” she reminded him, taking a look at the small looking human. He was in mildly better shape than the elf, but not by much. “Do you recall how the ritual works?”

  “Yes.”

  Shaking her head, she muttered a few choice words under her breath as she checked on the crystals themselves. If only she could force Xaril away from his books for a bit, force some actual emotions and life experience down the infuriating infernal’s throat. It would be worth the risk of losing her best apprentice for a bit, as she honestly didn’t think he would ever become a full fledged Master as he was now, and she desperately needed someone to help her shoulder the burden of leading the village.

  While examining the crystals, there was a sudden knock on the sick bay door, and Malzer shoved his head in, the boy as energetic and breathless as ever.

  “The human’s back!” He said, his voice as excited as his expression.

  “Back already? He better not be coming to plead for some sort of alternative solution,” Madam Trebella frowned. The purification ritual was the only method she had of saving him and his friends, and she couldn’t cast it without the materials from within that cave. He hadn’t struck her as a quitter, but there was no way he’d managed to fight his way past all those monsters that quickly.

  “I don’t think that’s why he’s back…” Malzar said, glancing over his shoulder and opening the door wider.

  Madam Trebella stared in shock at the human as he walked into the room, fixing her with his piercing blue eyes. He looked as though he’d fought off an army all on his own on the way here, and he was trailed by some strange magical cat construct and that rat familiar that had been here earlier.

  His skin was covered in red welts and horrific burns, and he was bleeding from what looked like hundreds of small cuts all over his person. His strange grey clothing covered in far too many pockets than was reasonable was barely in one piece, the threads severed and shredded and the fabric dyed red with his blood. His dark hair was a mess, matted down and missing chunks, either from splashes of acid or errant insect slashes, she couldn’t tell.

  But despite it all, he stood there, staring defiantly at her as he tossed a sack at her feet. Madam Trebella didn’t even have to open it to know what it contained, sensing the familiar magical aura of the materials she needed for the ritual.

  “I got what you needed,” he said, his voice firm despite the hint of exhaustion she could hear beneath his words.

  “Now heal my friends.”