Witches (The Order)Revised

Chapter 54

Merianna

I was pushed into a group that consisted of Thyrion, Raska and myself. The council found an area to set the trap in, and also handled the transportation of the charm from the forest by the village to the ruins of the old temple I was now gawking at.

"This place is surprisingly massive..." I breathed as I marveled at the few pieces of the structure that still stood.

"This place was so beautiful back in the day." Raska sighed wistfully from my left.

"What on earth were you doing at a Temple?" Thyrion asked from behind us.

"I was given a bounty to take the corrupt priest's head before he opened a Demon Gate in the underground chambers. It happened in my past life just before this one I believe. Oh what a day that was... the people were screaming, the priest was fighting, the floor exploded and all worked out well in the end. Before the fight though I had a lovely time being treated as a noble woman in the inner rooms while waiting to meet the priest, they had the most wonderful wine and the softest pillows." I suspected that Thyrion and I were sharing the same thought at that moment. That Raska was innocently scary.

"So if we go over to the foundations, there will be a big hole in the ground? How big is it?" I asked curiously.

"There should be, when I saw it last, it was pretty big for a hole, not enough time has passed to have the earth erase it all yet. Apparently Ferina said that they planted the charm inside the hole. It will be hilarious to see the hunters suddenly run into an illusioned wall in the ground." She chuckled and started wandering closer to the ruins.

Thyrion and I followed close by as all the other teams around us milled about, awaiting further instructions. I was pleasantly surprised to see that a lot of the unfamiliar witches I saw were from the council. Noch had raved not too long ago about how he didn't trust the Council to properly organise, let alone take care of an ambush, yet it seemed that Councilor Ferina had a good handle on everything going on as far as I saw. It made me wonder what the other members of the council were like.

"Oh! It hasn't changed much at all!" Raska's surprised voice piped up from in front of me. We had reached the foundation of the temple and walked along the overgrown tiles which used to be a floor.

My jaw dropped when I came up next to Raska and glanced down at the hole she mentioned. "This is massive! It's not a hole it's a crater!" I exclaimed. Over the edge of the floor we stood on, the "hole" that Raska mentioned was indeed there, only the inside of the "chamber" looked like a devastated war zone that had a crater in the middle, which made it even bigger than it actually was.

"It's not that bad. The thing that eventually killed the priest was the bomb that I got from Arasule to destroy the Demon Gate. Although, I must admit, I didn't expect it to be as powerful as it was." She reminisced while examining her past bounty's results.

"Anything from Arasule is dangerous." Thyrion commented with a rueful grin as he also examined the aftermath.

"Well, I can't argue with that." I muttered back.

A small rustling noise from the darkness of the hole caught my attention. Squinting, I leaned in a bit closer over the edge to see what it was. I didn't see anything until a black mass suddenly came shooting out of the hole straight to me.

I screamed in surprise as it enveloped me quicker than I could react. I jerked as arms snuck around and secured me to a warm body. Before I could shock whoever had a hold of me, the darkness disappeared. "Oh how I missed this!" Squealed Junnie's voice from over my head.

"WHY THE HELL ARE YOU HERE?!" I exploded and started writhing to get out of her grasp.

"I was lonely..." She sing-songed and proceeded to squeeze me even tighter.