CrimsonDusk: I guess this is a big deal? I was pretty much thrown in the deep end here so idk how any of this witchy stuff really works.

 

UrbanArcane: Hey it’s all good, I think we’re all just kinda shocked to hear you were just given a witch house like that. It takes so much time and effort to make one that a lot of witches don’t even bother, so the ones that do tend to get pretty attached to the place. You don’t hear about a witch handing one over to someone else very often, and even then there’s usually some sort of trade going on. If you really did just get one for free then you must be the luckiest person in the world.

 

xX_TheDollMaster_Xx: yea u hit the fukin jackpot gurl

 

“Huh…”

 

Mari was obviously very grateful to have been given this house for free, but all of the magic stuff it has going on, and everything she’s had to deal with as a result, has been such a pain that she hasn’t stopped to consider that she might actually be quite fortunate to have found herself in such a place. That being said, enchanted or not, the main issue with her new home is the size of the thing, a witch condominium would have been much more reasonable.

 

CrimsonDusk: So what exactly is a witch house? Like I’ve learnt it’s impossible for anyone who’s not a mailman to find this place, and I can tell when they’re here before they knock on the door, but is that all part of the deal or is it something else entirely?

 

LadyEleanor57: Dear CrimsonDusk,

 

As I mentioned in an earlier message, willpower plays a key role in practising witchcraft, and in short, a witch house is a small section of the world that will more easily bend to said will.

 

One could think of it as establishing your domain. The master of the witch house will be able to cast stronger spells than they would outside of its bounds, and they can also cast spells onto the witch house itself, allowing it to affect all manner of things within it, and even the world outside to a limited extent. Those occurrences you’ve listed both sound fairly typical of what one would expect from a witch house, especially if the witch who so generously handed it over to you valued their privacy.

 

As UrbanArcane has already mentioned, the reason it is so extraordinary that you have been given one for free is because it takes an incredibly long time to establish one, as you must infuse the area with enough of your own magic for the effects to become permanent. It’s a project that a witch could easily spend more than a decade on, and even that is only for a house of average size, bigger witch houses will require significantly more effort. I have been working on mine for several centuries, in fact, and there are still sections of this castle that aren’t fully covered yet.

 

You may find that there are potential hindrances from being made the master of an existing witch house instead of making one yourself, however. Based on the information you’ve imparted it would seem that you’ve been blessed enough to have not experienced any detrimental effects, but keep in mind that if you wanted to change or remove the spells that have already been applied to it, you would almost certainly run into difficulties doing so as your magic will be different than, if not wholly incompatible with, what was used in its creation.

 

It is worth noting that there are ways to infuse it with your own magic, and the process to do so is much faster than starting from scratch, but I think it would be best to leave that discussion for another time. I realise you already have a number of things to keep you occupied, and I would prefer not to burden you with anything further until you have more of a grasp on your own situation.

 

Once again, I hope this information proves useful to you.

 

Mari just sits there for a while, the post does indeed have a lot of useful information that will be great to refer back to later, but there’s one part in particular that’s brought her to a stop. She scans it several times over to make sure she didn’t misread it, but the words on her screen remain the same.

 

CrimsonDusk: Sorry, what do you mean by centuries?

 

LadyEleanor57: Dear CrimsonDusk,

 

It would appear that part of my message may have confused you, and if that is the case I apologise, but to be completely honest I’m not entirely sure what the source of the confusion is. It is a simple fact that I have spent hundreds of years turning my home into a witch house. I can understand how it can be surprising to hear that someone has spent such a long period of time on a task, but sometimes being a witch requires a level of persistence.

 

Regards.

 

…That really didn’t clear things up at all.

 

CrimsonDusk: Is this like an RP thing? I don’t see how you could be spending 100s of years on something in the first place.

 

xX_TheDollMaster_Xx: oh fuk

 

when u said u didnt know anything about witches u actually meant NOTHING huh? thats kinda funny actually but also whatever witch got u started on all this is pretty fuckin mean for not telling u anything about how this shit works

 

but yea did u think u could just use all this magic without any side effects? ur body starts changing after a while, like adapting to all the magic or whatevs. that means a lotta things but rn the important part is that witches can kinda live forever. were kinda like crocodiles but with less teeth usually lmao

 

bet u thought the 57 in els username was 1957 haha, shes way fukin older than that. also why the fuck would witches need to rp when were already doin all this magic shit?

 

Mari puts a hand over her eyes as she sighs, leaning back in her chair. If all of this is true then there’s a lot about this LadyEleanor57 that suddenly makes way more sense if she’s actually hundreds of years old and living in a castle somewhere, but the whole living forever thing is a huge shock. All of this would have been really good to know before she got herself into this mess. Is living forever something she even wants? There are a lot of thoughts she’d have to confront before she could even begin to answer that question. Not to mention the fact that he said her body will start to change at some point, she’ll need to understand what exactly that means as well.

 

CrimsonDusk: That’s a lot, and idk if I actually want any of it. I don’t really think I want to hear anything else about all of this right now, but just so I know, am I already locked into this or do I still have time to figure out what I want to do?

 

xX_TheDollMaster_Xx: i mean witches can still die and shit so u wont live forever if you piss off the wrong person lol

 

but also how long u been doin this magic thing? its not like u start to change after 1 spell or anything

 

Mari checks her calendar, she doesn’t know the answer to that off the top of her head.

 

“Wow… it’s only been two months since I moved in? Feels like it’s been longer than that. Then if I include the time I spent learning how to keep that enchantment going…”

 

CrimsonDusk: Should have only been about 4 months, and the first half of that wasn’t very intensive.

 

xX_TheDollMaster_Xx: oh well uve got plenty of time lol

 

depends on how much magic ur using, but worst case scenario u got at least like 2 years before u gotta start worrying about this shit

 

Mari lets out a small sigh, that’s at least something.

 

CrimsonDusk: Okay, that’s a huge relief. Guess I can just stay the course until I figure out what I want to do in the long term.

 

Mari’s glad that she’s got plenty of time to consider if she wants to commit to the whole witch thing, if nothing else it’s reassuring that she still has the option of just giving up and going back to her old life if things don’t work out with this place. Heck, she’s saving so much money right now that even if she did go back she’d have a much easier time getting by.

 

There is one big issue though, what would she do with the dolls if she returns to a normal life? She doesn’t want to just abandon them, but will she be able to sustainably afford a place big enough for both herself and the two of them, even with her savings? Maybe she could get them jobs as well, make sure the household has plenty of income?

 

Her train of thought is broken when she hears Martin shriek before bolting past the doorway, followed by Leona chasing after him, yelling “sorrykittysorrykittysorrykitty!”.

 

Mari’s not confident the dolls would be able to hold a job for very long.