Witches (The Order)Revised

Chapter 30

Merianna

Once we passed through the gateway back into the Order's Atrium I felt relieved enough to just drop to the hard stone floor and stay there till the next day.

My body was tender and bruised, I had scratches wherever my armoured clothing didn't cover my skin, and I was so very tired. Oh, and my nerves were also fried. I was pretty sure that I could hear my brain sizzling on the inside. I probably looked like death warmed over again as well. Heaven knows that's how I felt.

I took the bag with the wand inside it in one hand and thrust it over into Jasnine's line of vision when she had just opened her mouth to say something.

"You aren't going to come with me to hand this in?" She asked sweetly.

"No. No, no, no. It's all your baby now. I don't want to see that blasted wand again for the foreseeable forever. It'll only traumatize me further." I said dryly and started shuffling to the archway so I could go collapse onto my bed and sleep away the next century.

Jasnine chuckled lightly and followed my lead. "You only gained more experience with this Bounty Meri, there will be many more to come in your future. There are bounties that are a lot harder than this one as well actually. This one was a lower level bounty that I took just because I wanted the reward."

Curiosity started overshadowing the dread I felt crawling up inside me for my possible future solo bounties.

"What is the reward?" I asked as I looked over my shoulder at her cheery face. Gods, she looked like she had just come back from one of the natural hot springs in the mountains, where as I was a walking corpse. It made me want to hit her; and I had never wanted to hit her like I wanted to hit Noch on a daily basis. Today, the urge was almost overwhelming...

She beamed. "The reward is a Scriber that's lined with dragon blood and encased in dragon scales. It's a beautifully elegant thing, and I can't wait to start scribing runes with it!" She squealed in delight. "Oh and a bag full of gold coins."

I on the other hand frowned. "Wait a minute. Aren't dragons extinct?"

She gave me a sidelong glance that looked all knowing. "Yes they are. But! That doesn't mean that the craft works that their scales, bones, blood and so on had been used for back in the day went extinct along with them."

"Oh, that's right." I said, only realizing then how idiotic that question had been.

Jasnine nodded enthusiastically as she practically hugged the bag to her chest. "I have been experimenting with a few runes as of late and some combinations have been, how should I put it? Potent?" She remarked with a tilt of her head and a pained smile on her face.

"What has been happening?" I asked curiously.

Her shoulders slumped. "Ah, well, the combinations have somewhat been rupturing my other Scribers."

"What?!" I asked in disbelief.

She made a pitiful sound in the back of her throat that sounded like a whimper. "Yes. My beautiful collection has been sacrificed to the good of rune evolution. Not that the runes are helping in any way either actually. Every one that had not managed to implode a scriber was null, even when I was sure I had it right, but, no."

I cringed inwardly at the thought of all those beautiful scribers all being destroyed. I had seen Jasnine's collection, and she had every imaginable material that could be crafted into a scriber. Sylvan Wood scribers, Demon Bone scribers, Thulian Iron scribers, Obsidian scribers, Light scribers and much more.

"How much of your collection is left?" I asked tentatively, almost dreading the answer.

She grimaced. "I'm left with maybe 3 rune scribers?"