While Angelica could only breathe some relief as the curse would activate and slowly kill her daughter. The matriarch of Morgana’s family is still perturbed by the sudden darkness that encroached on the hall itself. The statues of various mages that lined the hall suddenly could not be seen, and all details of the room beyond her immediate surroundings vanished, eaten by the darkness that Morgana had unleashed. Any lesser witch would’ve been a little bit frightened, perhaps flinched just for a second before regaining their composure. But Angelica is not that witch.
She knows that whatever Morgana is planning, she is on a clock doing so. And the best thing she could do is to make sure that her counterspell is ready, and wards are also in place in the event of Morgana quickly firing off some spells and curses her way. Her passive stance would also help her detect any potential slow-working curses that Morgana might’ve cast within the darkness.
It’s a bet, true. There are only so many vantage points Angelica could see within the darkness, but someone like her wouldn’t ascend to the position of Matriarch if she didn’t take risks. Any slight change in Morgana’s calculation, any potential deviation in what she expected from her daughter, and the scales could balance in her daughter’s favour.
After the darkness fell over the room, nothing immediately happened.
It was an unfortunate state of affairs that Morgana simply wasn’t very quick at casting her spells; mostly because she wasn’t casting spells at all in the traditional sense. Where other practitioners would cast spells directly by channelling their magical energies into the desired form, usually with some kind of somatic or verbal component, Morgana would draw a magic formation that was designed to produce a similar effect. It was slower, more prone to interruptions and mistakes, was more difficult and didn’t provide any noticeable benefits over the usual way of doing things other than being slightly more efficient.
She could cast spells the usual way of course; there was nothing stopping her from doing so. It was just that Morgana was frankly not very good at casting spells on the fly; at least not the kind of spells that would be useful in a combat situation. She’d never learned how to cast a fireball or a lightning bolt the usual way, because what use were spells like that in her line of work? If she needed fire she would draw a magic formation for it, tweaking it to produce a flame of the exact size and temperature that she wanted and giving it enough power to run itself while she focused on other things.
Very useful. Very versatile. But, unfortunately, slow.
So Morgana’s follow-up attack did not come immediately after the darkness fell. It instead arrived a few seconds later, when a fireball about the size of a basketball emerged from the gloom about a foot from her mother’s face.
A second one appeared with much less of a delay, right on the heels of the first and slightly to the right. Soon followed by a third in a similar fashion and a fourth right after, each of near identical size and velocity and heat of the first.
There was one benefit to magical formations after all. The effects of one were perfectly replicable should you create a second to the exact same specifications, which wasn’t at all the case when casting spells on the fly; slight variations in the casters condition, the magical energy they provided or even atmospheric conditions would cause deviations, minor as they were. That said, it was rather tedious to have to copy the same magical formation over and over again should you need to produce an effect more than once after all. Which was why the gloves Morgana has designed and created for herself did not just allow her to draw magic formations in thin air, it also allowed her to store and reproduce said formations repeatedly.
Simply copy and paste.
A sixth, seventh and eighth fireball followed the rest, now noticeably smaller and weaker than the first few.
There was a slight degradation to the effect that came with each replication. The duplicates were not perfect copies of the original by virtue of the fact that Morgana was not the one drawing them; magical formations always worked best for the one that drew them, which was why they could not be mass produced beyond the most basic and temporary effects. And as each replication was a copy of a copy of a copy, they degraded at an exponential rate.
It also lacked in versatility, as Morgana was throwing the same spell at her mother again and again in the most basic fashion. But it was very fast, as the ninth, tenth and eleventh fireballs headed out, each slightly to the right of the last as she circled the room. Fast and hopefully quite distracting.
Angelica did not expect the rapid succession of fireballs to suddenly come out from her daughter’s general direction, and she moved quickly and rapidly to prevent herself from getting burned by the Fireballs. They were simple spells, ones she knew well, but they moved fast, and they were perfect replicas of each other. So much so that by the tenth and eleventh fireball. Angelica was running ragged, with some fireballs hitting her directly. The only saving grace is her runes and wards preventing some actual damage on her skin.
The heat was unbearable, however.
And if Morgana intends to deplete Angelica’s runes, then she has done it to perfection. Angelica was intent on having her wards and protection spells counter a few attacks, but quick attacks in rapid succession were not something she had in mind when she imagined her daughter’s counterattack, not to mention that it is rapid firing as well. Not only making her gasp for breath as she tried to dodge the machine gun of fireballs heading her general direction, but also depleting all the wards she had meticulously created throughout the battle. A frankly brilliant counter.
And it made Angelica to stop and think for a moment, while Morgana certainly had her on the ropes, she needed to remind herself that there was a curse working near her daughter’s heart, all she needed to do was to make sure that Morgana ultimately remained predictable, and one way to make her predictable is….
A trap! Of course!
If she manages to make Morgana stay in one place, like putting a spell that prevents movement, all she needed is to just wait it out, Morgana would be stuck in one place, and was forced to cast her spells from that one axis, whether it is curses, attack spells, or even cantrips. It would be easy to read where Morgana would be casting if she was to stay in one place.
The headmistress of the Faith family crafted her magic circle to the ground, a meticulous arrangement of carvings made with bone dust, salt, and some sage. All incredibly traditional materials to work with, and once the circle is ready. She made sure not to step on it, sidestepping the magical circle entirely, and walked towards wherever Morgana could potentially be located.
“Daughter!” Angelica shouted. “I know that you are still present here. Why don’t you come out for a little bit? Perhaps have a woman vs woman match? No tricks, no nothing, just a duel to exhaustion. Didn’t realize that your time in the OMR allowed you to create such nifty tricks, especially with those fireballs. My goodness!”
She is expecting Morgana to respond, as she is casting a simple spell by herself at the moment. A magical garrote that will track the mana emanation from Morgana, and entrap her in its bindings until Angelica stops the spell or runs out of mana herself. It would allow her to, literally, pull and put Morgana into the magical circle. Thus making sure her victory is all but assured.
“An honest duel?” It took a great amount of effort on Morgana’s part not to simply laugh in response to her mother’s suggestion. As if a consummate witch such as Angelica Faith were capable of doing anything with ‘no tricks’ involved. The notion alone spat in the face of all of their traditions.
Even if it didn’t and Morgana believed for one second this was a serious request, why would she accept? She was in the superior position, surprisingly, her distraction proving far more effective at burning away her mother’s wards both figuratively and literally than she had expected. The room was still cloaked in her darkness for the time being and her mother wasn’t even mounting a counter attack against her. She was winning. Why level the playing field?
Beneath her coat, the curse continued to feed.
“Of course, a duel! Where do you want me to stand, on the giant red X?”
Morgana kept up the steady stream of fireballs with one hand, now noticeably diminished compared to the original, and began drawing another magic formation in the air with her free hand. Once her mother’s wards all failed, assuming her weakness was not a bluff, then she would need a binding circle to entrap her the moment she was vulnerable; something to prevent further casting and make capturing her physically easier. The process of actually binding a practitioner’s magic was far more complex than she could manage in a few minutes, but an effect to bind her arms to her side and prevent her from speaking would be effective enough. A similar spell to the one she cast in Germany, to stick that cultist to the floor should work.
“Thank you for responding!”
The words Morgana spoke was more than enough for Angelica to pinpoint her daughter’s location. Not to mention the fireballs that she unleashed was more than easy to trace, the wires quickly wrapped itself around the daughter of the Faith family, and the only thing Angelica needed was to pull and drag her daughter into the magical circle. A simple feat that needed only muscles, admittedly something she lacks, but where muscles are lacking, willpower will power the Faith family matriarch through, and soon enough, she saw Morgana’s face, and quickly after that, her bound body emerge from the darkness.
It was only moments before she could gloat and impress her coven with such an achievement, just one more push…
Yes… binding a practitioner’s arms was a very effective way of preventing someone from being able to cast their spells. Especially someone like Morgana, who needed her arms free to draw the complex circles that her magic required. One could do so by inflicting their target with a sort of localised paralysis, which was effective but required getting past whatever wards or barriers the target had in place, or they could use a binding effect not to press their arms down but instead of offer resistance when they tried to move, which was more complex but also more efficient depending on how much the person tried to struggle against the effect.
The simplest method though was simply to conjure a physical object and wrap them around the person in question. Of course, physically manifesting any kind of object was costly in terms of mana but the resulting effect was also something that was purely physical and therefore bypassed any defences designed to only stop attacks of a magical nature.
All of this was to say, Morgana had lost. Her mother’s conjured garrotte wires had ensnared her before her own spell could be completed and while the leftover warding she had placed on her clothes to make them bulletproof prevented the wire from cutting through to her skin, they didn’t stop it from pinning her arms in place.
She offered little resistance as her mother pulled her forward, feeling strangely drained after firing so many fireballs in a row. No reason to fight it now, it was almost over; she could feel the magic circle her mother had crafted behind her, had been able to feel it through her wards the moment it had activated. The witch could even divine the nature of its binding to an extent, how being trapped within it would not seal her magic away any more than it already had been, but that stepping inside of it would leave her trapped.
Almost over, and she was tired now. A deep exhaustion emanated from somewhere in her chest, flooding her limbs and growing stronger with each second.
Almost over.
Angelica is feeling triumphant. She knew that this was the closing act. As the Head of her Coven, she can already see that her fellow witches watching at the stand was starting to look seriously at the fight. Now that she is pretty much guaranteed to win. No surprises can come from what looks like a very tired, and very defeated Morgana.
The curse is working, and Morgana looks defeated, it only takes one last effort on Angelica’s part to ensure she would remain that way. “C’mon daughter, we have a date with Destiny today!” She said, her face unmistakably smug and full of so much arrogance only a Faith would have. “Don’t want to have my daughter pull some last-minute spells on my face, we should ensure that, no?” She also said. Casting a spell to amplify the curse even more, making Morgana even weaker as she continued dragging the woman towards the circle.
Any minute now…
They were at the edge of the circle now, Morgana wards almost brushing up against the edge of it, her feet standing on the runes themselves but not yet in the circle itself. By now she had figured out what it was for; a one-way physical binding that would prevent those that entered it from leaving again. A simple arrangement, one unsuited to long term containment since anyone trapped inside with even a modicum of knowledge of such things could simply create their own exit; but in the middle of a fight, when you were already worn down and drained of most of your mana? It was sufficient.
“Tell me mother.” Morgana’s words came out slightly slurred, as if she was too tired to even move her lips to form the words. “Were you really so foolish as to not exclude yourself from your own binding?”
The witch tipped backwards, letting her weight and her mother’s grip on the wires pull the woman with her into the circle which, due to the lack of any more complex configurations would trap the both of them inside.
It was quite unexpected, and events unfolded so quickly that Angelica barely had any time to react, it was hopeless, however, since the sudden jerk from her daughter pulled both of them towards the circle. The runes were activated, and both Angelica and Morgana were suddenly trapped within the confines of the circle.
The head witch certainly had considered such a possibility, but if she knew one thing about Morgana, it was that she didn’t consider the possibility of her actions long-term. Even if both of them were trapped within the same circle. It was only a matter of time until Morgana’s curse would impact her body so severely that she would consider ceding victory to her. Lest she… well, die.
“Dearest Morgana.” She said, now stuck in the magic circle alongside her. “Are you too shortsighted that you can only see the immediate option laid out before you? I didn’t think that your skills as a Witch would degrade to such an extent.” Uncasting the garrote wire she had on her, she continued her tirade of disappointment towards her only daughter. “I swear that I taught my daughter about more foresight than this. Words could not explain how disappointed I am with you.”
“Have you considered the fact that you are now trapped with me in this circle? What do you think you are going to do now that you cannot move your arms and limbs? The best case scenario for you currently is your surrender to me. Since this circle will degrade throughout the day and I will have a much higher mana reserve than you do by the end of that. I promise you that I will treat you well if you come back to the fold, however. I do love my children if they are genuinely remorseful of their actions.”
Just the thought of Morgana being back in her fold again is bringing her great joy. Oh the reeducation of her is going to be so, so satisfying.
As soon as her mother was done talking, Morgana lashed out with one hand and launched the now complete binding spell she had been preparing earlier towards her, the orb of blue light flying at her and adhering the woman’s arms and back to the floor before she could think to pick herself up. It had been difficult to finish the circle with her limited mobility and the duration had surely suffered as a result, but it still had the desired effect of immobilising her.
“I don’t want to hear about short-sightedness from someone who released their spell too early.” Having her arms freed without her having to do anything herself was a boon; as it was, Morgana had expected to have to finish this duel with both arms tied behind her back, but luckily that wasn’t the case.
Morgana slowly picked herself up off of the ground, fatigue clear from how considered and ponderous her actions were. Once on her feet, she walked over to the edge of the circle and stopped just short of the boundary that would stop her from moving any further. “As for my skills as a witch, perhaps you should have paid more attention to those papers I sent you. You seem woefully unaware of what I’m capable of.” A quick flick of her wrist conjured a rudimentary circle before Morgana, which she pushed forward until it came into contact with the invisible border of the circle and disappeared.
The witch stepped forward and passed over the circle without hindrance. “I know you were in a hurry when you made it, but I have better wards cast on my fridge than this. Don’t bother trying to leave yourself; this circle is mine now.”
“Ugh, always with that typical Faith family flair.” Angelica responded, nonchalantly. There is some part in her brain that is quite shocked that Morgana managed to take control of the circle so easily and managed to bind her inside the magic circle as well. Certainly a smart move, but ultimately a futile one.
“You realize that there is still that curse working it’s way up to your heart no? A curse that is set to kill you any minute now? If you surrender yourself to me, then perhaps I could dispel the curse in time. A bit of tradeoff wouldn’t hurt now would it?”
Truthfully, Angelica is feeling rather desperate. The bindings and the magic circle mean that the only way she could fight Morgana is with her words, and she doesn’t know if Morgana would be stupid enough to kill herself despite of that. A small bead of sweat is running down her brow as she was taunting Morgana from her binds.
Morgana paused, tilting her head to the side as if seriously considering the proposal. “Hmm, I suppose allowing myself to die just to spite you would be taking this whole farce a little too far.” The witch turned and crouched down at the edge of the circle, leaning forward so that the brim of her hat was almost touching the invisible boundary. “Are you saying that you’d watch me die if I don’t release you from your own folly? This is quite a mean-spirited curse you’ve used on your own daughter. One would almost think you were lying when you said you loved your children.”
Standing up again, Morgana let an ounce of the disdain she felt for the woman before her show itself on her features, her expression twisting into one of long held disgust. “But then, I’ve always known that the only things you’re capable of loving are yourself and that which benefits you.” Reaching a hand into her coat Morgana extracted a green glass bottle, round and with a flat bottom almost like a beaker and filled with an unidentifiable liquid.
“I’m sure you’re able to recognise what this is? I did learn how to make it from this household after all.” Morgana stooped down to place the witches’ bottle on the ground just outside the magic circle, completely out of Angelica’s grasp despite being only a few inches away. As soon as her fingers left the glass, Morgana felt the exhaustion that had plagued her evaporated in an instant now that she was no longer in contact with the curse that had been trapped inside it. “I hope you didn’t think me foolish enough to come here without some precautions towards curses?”
In truth… there is a part of her that felt proud when Morgana pulled out that witch bottle. The woman that she raised from birth has now beaten her. The fact that she didn’t sense that there was even a witch bottle speaks to the fact that Morgana has concealed it well inside her coat. No doubt protected by magic absorbing wards and other protective spells she could only imagine.
She couldn’t bear to look at the college of witches that were assembled in the hall. All of them immediately leaving the scene the moment Morgana puts the Witch’s bottle just beyond her reach. She knew that she was well and truly defeated. Perhaps it is her hubris that lead to her downfall, perhaps it is her lack of tact and the fact that she didn’t read any of Morgana’s papers that she sent to her. Perhaps it is all of it.
Regardless, the outcome is pretty much set in stone. “You already know what to do…” She said, her eyes looking at the witch’s bottle, the light in her eyes slowly dimming as the fact that she’s about to lose everything dawned on her. “Just understand that I will do everything to preserve this coven Morgana, whatever moves you think I did that was reprehensible, whatever deal we have cultivated, all of this is to ensure that the Witches would still remain relevant in the 21st century.”
“... there is a lever in the back of the hall, pull it, and the cages holding your friends will come down.”
Letting out a sigh, Morgana schooled her features once more and said, truthfully but not unkindly. “If the only way witches can remain relevant is by making these kinds of deals, if you cannot imagine a way they can do so on their own merits, perhaps that is a sign that their time has come to an end.” She chose not to mention that by signing up to this deal, by selling witchcraft to cults and criminals and who knows who else, by losing this duel and failing in her goal, she had only ensured that the practices of witchcraft would fall under further scrutiny. What was already a dying art would wither further under criminal investigations and restrictions on the admittedly less savoury parts of the craft and the already antiquated practice would begin to be seen as dangerous too.
Or perhaps not. Morgana wasn’t an expert on the vacillating nature of public opinion, nor how the OMR would handle things going forward.
“Just be good and sit there until someone comes to arrest you. Cooperate, answer their questions, and maybe you won’t have all of your assets seized.”
Morgana detected no lies in what her mother said about the level she was directed to, but that didn’t prevent her from checking it over thoroughly for any last minute traps before pulling it.
