Witches (The Order)Revised

Chapter 24

Merianna

"Tell me again why this is a good plan?" I whispered uncertainly to Jasnine as we crawled through a sleeping little town chock-full of Nirn witches.

The wards around the border that we had slipped through gave me my first clue as to what we were dealing with on the inside. I had raised this point to Jasnine already when she put the heavy wards back the way we had found them without setting off a single ripple of energy.

"Because," She said softly while pulling me next to her "you're young. If you get caught, they are less likely to skin you than they would if they were to see me." She announced nonchalantly with a wicked grin.

I was slowly starting to come to terms with the fact that even beautifully sane Jasnine, might not be as sane as I had always liked to believe.

"So tell me, which Nirn type are we stealing from exactly?" I asked sweetly with a forced smile.

"Oh, just the normal kind you know." She said evasively with an excited glint in her eye. It was a glint that I was most definitely not going to trust anymore.

With a sigh I took stock of the situation in my mind.
Here I was with Jasnine. The bounty required her to retrieve a stolen artifact. Said stolen artifact had been traced back to this Nirn invested village on the other side of the realm. Said stolen artifact was an enchanted wand which had apparently been imbued with a deity's blood. Which by all rights would be a catastrophe in any one person's hand, and Armageddon in the right kind of hands.

Said Nirns were the right kind of hands for the worst kind of Armageddon. No matter if the Nirns were white Nirns or black Nirns. The Nirns are insanely dangerous either way when you get on their bad side, and I would say that this was going to put us on the top of their bad side list. My stomach dropped with the thought of us coming across even just one of them. Dealing with one Nirn was like dealing with the whole coven at once since Nirns are coven bound. Which meant that the power of all the Nirns together can be pulled by one member to use as they see fit at any given time. They were kind of like bees. Only, any one bee can have access to all the other bees's stingers all at once if needed.

And I hate being stung by bees...

I very much hoped that we wouldn't come across anyone.

Please stay asleep, please stay asleep, please-stay-asleep, pleasestayasleep-!

My inner prayers were cut short when Jasnine pulled me to a stop. Only to have them start up again as soon as I saw her pulling out the tracking charm that she had been given by the client.

Don't let it be here, don't let it be here, don't let it be here, for the sake of all things cursed and damned don't let it be here!

Jasnine looked from the charm to a dark two story stone building in front of us and back to the charm again. She smiled triumphantly at me as she put the charm away again.

"It's here."

Nooooooooooooo! My subconscious squeaked in despair. I swear I could feel a small piece of myself die on the inside...

"You remember the plan we made on the way here?" She asked excitedly.

"I wish I didn't." I mumbled dully.

"Come on Merianna, perk up. This is your first Bounty! Where did all the excitement go?" She asked while pinching my cheeks.

"I didn't think that we would be retrieving something so important from a Nirn village!" I whisper yelled back at her and smacked her hands away.