As the youngster walked through the Den, the witches accompanying her noticed something very strange going on with her aura. It had only just formed, so it should be threadbare and unstable, but it wasn't. It was every bit as stable as the others here, and it was growing very quickly, despite the fact that she didn't have a Familiar.
Her aura had only been active for a few minutes. She hadn't had time to summon one, even if she had wanted to.
"It's got to be the Servant Bond. See the mark on her neck? It's just like the first twenty. The bond transfers some power between Wolfe and the Witches who follow him, so it's feeding her aura from the bond to bring her growth up toward everyone else's level." One of the officers observed.
"Is that a good thing?" Katerina asked hopefully.
"It's a very good thing. They are much more powerful than average, and if you are brought up to their level, you will be a very powerful young witch, capable of learning nearly everything that a graduate of the Academies can do." The officer explained.
"Like the good healing potions?"
The witches giggled at her naive worldview. The so-called 'good healing potions' were still learned in the first year at the Academy.
"Yes, like the good healing potions and even better things than that. You could learn wards and charms that would keep monsters from entering villages, attack magic that could hunt any beast you wanted, and even defensive armour as strong as any soldier. Plus, you would be able to spread that armour to all your nearby friends."
Now Katerina was really excited. She had always longed to be a witch, just like her mother. But her mother could barely make healing potions or activate the spells on captured magical weapons. From what everyone was telling her, it looked like the bar for her life's goal had been set too low.
"First, you need to eat. Your practice is going to take a lot of energy. So, let's have a seat, and the cook will bring us over whatever she has available." Cassie instructed, but her furry-eared charge stopped dead as soon as she saw the dining hall.
"What is that? Did you seriously make an entire mess hall out of precious gems?" She gasped.
"It's an illusion of sorts, a magical barrier that gives the item a different appearance, like our armour spells. Wolfe used Fire Magic to make the stone look like translucent red gems. That's why you can't see all the way through, even though it looks like you should be able to. It's not real, Ruby. It just looks like it." Cassie told her with a laugh.
"So, all of this fancy stonework and the gold and magical lights?" Katerina continued.
"Well, the light spells are actual balls of magical fire, but the rest looks different underneath the spell that he cast on it. It likely looks quite similar to how your village does, in plain stone, but smooth because we mined it all with magic, so there are no tool marks."
They took their seats, and the cook brought over a plate of food piled with monster meat and mashed potatoes, the basic sources of energy for a hungry scout.
"How am I supposed to eat that? Forget my stomach. That serving is as big as my head." The small witch reminded them.
"Just do the best that you can. If you can't finish, I'm sure the others will sneak bites off your plate until it's empty." The cook adjusted her apron as she chuckled and then walked back into her side of the kitchen, where even more leftover food was waiting to be portioned and put into the sealed containers that they had found among the mundane army's gear.
They had a walk-in freezer as large as most bedrooms, thanks to water magic making extremely cold ice, so keeping the leftovers for later wasn't a big concern of theirs. Everyone could eat when they wanted. The kitchen would simply pull out the past day's leftovers for anyone who wanted them.
"Alright, the very first thing that everyone needs to learn is the armour spell," Cassie instructed once the plate was finally cleaned and their student was nearly in a food coma.
"Why armour first? Shouldn't it be healing potions? They're the most important part of being a witch." She asked.
"Because not all of your practice will be safe. Some potions can blow up in your face if you do them wrong, so you need to have an armour spell ready when you're trying new things." Cassie explained, which made the little witch giggle and her pointed catlike ears flick back and forth.
The joy of having magic was overcoming her, and she couldn't wait to get started, but the group of witches who had hung around to help with her training led her to a rough stone room that was down a long tunnel from the rest of the Den.
"This room was made specifically for training. That's why it isn't all fancy like everywhere else. No matter how wrong things go in here, it won't bother the others. Plus, it's further down than the rest of the den, so it's closer to the heat, which will help with Fire Elemental training.
They didn't have any of the Fire Elemental Flowers that the academies used as a focus to help the fledgling witches learn their first Armour spell, but the stones of the Frozen Wastes were heavily imbued with Fire Magic this deep underground, and it should work even more effectively.
For practical purposes, Wolfe would give her a five-element armour amulet, they were sure, but she still needed to learn the basics and not just rely on amulets and trinkets to get by.
While they were all working on establishing the newest member of their group, Priya was working on establishing something else. She had pulled Wolfe into his bedroom so that others wouldn't hear and was facing him with her hands on her hips.
"You know, it's been a long time that we've been together. Why is it that I'm the only one without a Bonding Spell?" She asked.
"Because I'm not the one that creates them. It's a reaction of the [Favor] spell to their oaths. You never outright admitted that you owe me or that you want to remain with me, so your tsundere nature has prevented a bond from forming." Wolfe reminded her.
"Pardon me? Who is the tsundere one here? Mister lovey-dovey one moment, then all [I'm going out to kill the humans and save the Covens] the next." She retorted, then hid her face in embarrassment as she thought about all of the things they had done together to bring meaning to the phrase lovey-dovey.
She took a deep breath to gather her thoughts, then began to speak again. "I owe you more than I could ever repay. Not just for myself, you saved my friends, my family, even my home city might not be standing without your assistance."
Wolfe smiled at the flustered Lieutenant. "And the sex. I feel like there should be some sort of acknowledgement of that in your confession."
Priya smacked him on the shoulder and gave one of her rarely-seen blushing looks before she finished. "Fine, and for that. And not just because it was good but because of the power that it transferred. Even without the bond, I'm almost keeping up with your bonded witches."
She reached out and took Wolfe's hand in a handshake, then suddenly drew a blade between their two palms, mingling their blood and causing the [Blood Pact] effect to activate.
[Blood Pact Gained] Priya Lulabeth
