Argul was having a bad morning and she already had had a bad day yesterday. Really, she would like to do something against it, but herein lay the problem, she was suffering from a severe case of ‘waiting for to go’.

She had an appointment of sorts, had planned something and now she couldn’t do anything but wait until it was over, even though there were hours between now and then. That social media wasn’t really a thing anymore thanks to her didn’t make wasting time easier either. At least she had her domain she could watch, unlike all the other poor sods out there.

Argul let out a sigh and looked over at where her daughter and niece were playing UNO. “So Aly…”

Alyra let out a long suffering groan and looked up for a second, sneaking a +4 card on the table while Mia was distracted with their conversation. “Muuum, you already asked me 15 minutes ago and if you can remember I told you the stupid bishop was having an unnecessary luxurious breakfast back then, which he isn’t done with yet, so no, he isn’t on his way to his unannounced appointment with you yet!”

She gave Argul the stink eye, which she absolutely deserved considering that she had been annoying her daughter with questions about the priest for a whole day already. Argul didn’t want to admit it, but it was clear that her social anxiety had followed her through death.

Mia, focusing back on the game, looked down at the card Alyra had played, at her own three cards and lastly, at her opponent's full hand. For the entire round now it had looked like she was winning, but whenever she came close Alyra quickly prevented it and not even two +4 cards had been able to save Mia from this fate. This was definitely suspicious.

Mia stared at the cards for a moment longer before her eyes widened in realization and she pointed accusingly at Alyra. “You, you are CHEATING!”

Alyra raised both her hands in played innocence. “What? I would never!”

“Pfft!” Argul snorted to herself. Her daughter knew where which card was no matter how well you mixed them and while she usually did not abuse that knowledge, every now and then she would play you like a fiddle just for fun.

Shaking her head in amusement Argul blended out the little fight that had broken out next to her and absentmindedly traced the lines on the Plate of [Analyze] she had made two days ago.

Originally, she had planned to enchant it yesterday, but the arrival of the bishop had prevented her from doing so. She didn’t want to have to stop midway through, partly because she didn’t know if it would somehow affect the enchantment if she left it incomplete and unattended for too long, something she would have to test in the future and partly because she would hate to interrupt the immersed state of mind she always found herself in when she worked with mana. 

Normally she would be able to plan around all that, but the problem with the damn bishop was that he had not deigned to notify her of his visit and now she didn’t know when he would come. Not even Alyra could tell her, because the fucker constantly changed his mind!

It was infuriating and she would make sure to let him know that, and depending on how he acted his little god too.

Really, they weren’t helping themselves with their approach to her. Argul was already heavily biased against them and now they were additionally antagonizing her before their attempt at forceful recruiting.

She squinted her eyes and mentally smirked. They could try if they wanted. She wasn’t gullible enough to fall for it and she was way stronger than any of them knew!

Argul’s finger arrived at the stone sphere in the middle of the plate and she gave it a little boop.

Generally, she didn’t have a problem with religions and religious people. Everyone was free to think and believe in whatever they wanted as far as she was concerned. What she had a problem with was when people started to force their beliefs onto others, mentally tricking themselves into thinking they were right and then taking some sort of pleasure from their illusory morally superior standing. It started with stupid small things like people having a problem with pineapple on pizza and usually ended with concentration camps. 

Admittedly, Argul did the former too at times. To realize that what you were doing is wrong and stupid not only required a lot of self awareness, but was also more difficult than enjoying a bit of false superiority and while she tried not to force her opinion on others, sometimes she spoke without too much thinking and it happened. Constantly trying to regulate oneself was exhausting and mistakes sometimes happened.

The problem with the church of Meran was that they were decidedly practicing the latter and she didn’t like it, no, she hated it. Intolerance bred more intolerance, often with the intensity of a vicious cancer, and, if nothing was done against it, would spiral into a miserable cycle of hate, racism and suffering. 

As things stood, there would ultimately be war even without the fanatics to the east and all that only because it heavily helped one organization and or god in the short to middle term. 

Really, one more reason to leave this country together with family as soon as possible. It wasn’t an environment she would want a kid to grow up in either, though she feared that with her desire to see the effects mana had on the world and with that the need to travel around, she wouldn’t be able to give Mia a singular place to reach adulthood. Whether that was good or bad she didn’t know, she wasn’t really a parent after all, and ever since she had taken over responsibility for the girl this weighed heavily on her.

Argul gave the two still bickering children next to her a loving gaze before she looked down at the wooden plate in her hand again and continued her musings about morality and parenting, not realizing she had effectively distracted herself from her boredom.

It took a few more hours until the source of Argul’s anxiety finally got moving. She had almost believed they would be able to eat lunch before the bishop came or that he was waiting until they did exactly that and barged in to be extra annoying. There were, after all, always some people who had to be reporting to someone watching the inn and who knew if they managed to look inside from afar somehow. 

Argul looked at the entrance, stretching her mana senses to pierce into the soup of intents that were outside of the house and felt something bubble up inside her chest when the guarded carriage entered her range. It was only then that she started to consider that maybe it wasn’t anxiety but indignant fury that she felt and what happened next only vindicated her more.

—---------------

Thaddeus sat inside of one of the church’s carriages wondering about how his upcoming mission would go. His holy majesty Meran had told them that, in ancient times before he had been forced to leave humanity in fear of endangering earth in a fight with his enemies, witches were a somewhat common occurrence and served him to spread the magic and wonder to his believers. The witch-hunts that happened after Meran left were a tragedy and ultimately eradicated the strain of humans that were able to wield the extraordinary: magic.

Now that Meran had returned and not only forgiven them, but also gave every human the ability to wield magic, it turned out however that not all witches had died. Somehow, somewhere a few of them had to have been able to survive, for there was no other explanation for the existence of Argul Agren, the Silver Witch.

This would have been, no, should have been a reason to celebrate. Someone had survived humanities misguided cruelty and managed to preserve an ancient legacy. The problem was that witches served god for a reason. The power they wielded, for all its beauty and usefulness, could easily corrupt a person. God protected the witches from said corruption and guided them on their path, but to do that he required their servitude.

The Silver Witch however, did not follow ancient traditions and wholly ignored his holy majesty. Whether that was by choice or because of ignorance didn’t matter, as long as she remained uncontrolled the Silver Witch posed a threat to society.

Here Thaddeus came into play. His mission regarding this wayward witch was twofold. He was to show her her place in the grand scheme of things and, most importantly, bring her back into Meran’s shielding embrace.

When he had been assigned this duty a few days ago, Thaddeus was overjoyed, so much so that he immediately rushed to travel towards Newport. Receiving any job, not even speaking of one this important, from god was the greatest honor he could think of and quite a few priests were jealous of him and probably still are.

Ever since then though, his plans of approach had changed quite a bit. If he was just meant to recruit the Silver Witch then rushing there would have been acceptable, especially since the government wanted to have her for themselves. But, his job was also to knock her down and perhaps intimidate the witch, show her her place and as such he couldn’t just rush to her or risk giving her the impression that she was important. Though, going by how the military had treated her during the time she helped people acclimate to God's presence, she likely already thought that way.

Anyway, since he couldn’t immediately approach, Thaddeus instead gave sermons and tended to Meran’s flock for a whole day. It was only now that he was on his way to visit the witch.

The carriage continued to roll down innstreat, as people had come to call this particular street and stopped a few minutes later after the driver announced their arrival at the wooly sheep, though most just knew the place as the Witch’s Residence.

Thaddeus looked through one of the windows and gestured towards his guards to proceed with their plan, to which they nodded in acknowledgement. One of the four armored and armed men broke away from the carriage shortly after, approaching the inn and coming to a stop a few meters in front of the door.

There was a short intense break during which Thaddeus could feel his connection to Meran grow more active and then the guard cleared his throat loudly.

“Announcing the arrival of Bishop Thaddeus, messenger and agent of his holy majesty Meran!” The man shouted out. “Argul Agren, Silver Witch and nominal citizen of Erdanien, your and your daughter’s presence is demanded now! Be aware that this is a command and non-compliance is not acceptable.”

A few minutes of silence, during which the guard looked around nervously like he was expecting something to happen, followed. There was no reaction whatsoever though and after one more minute of waiting the guard shrugged before he took his one handed battleaxe from his belt while he started to approach the door.

Not two steps later a silverish white light appeared right next to the guard and shot towards his head. The man let out a startled yell, but wasn’t able to react to the sudden attack and the light slammed into his cheek with enough force to send him flying to the ground.

Thaddeus watched all this, unable to process what was happening besides the startling clear sound of a slap connecting to a face and the intense interest radiating through his connection to Meran.

—----

Argul was left speechless, staring at the door and, through her mana sense, the group of arrogant imbeciles on the other side. Then the person that had approached to sprout his nonsense reached for his weapon while he walked towards the door and Argul felt herself snap violently for the first time in years.