Huge luck!

Lucrece and her cat looked at each other, both equally exhilarated and buzzed with the views they were witnessing. A stand-alone, far away from all people, on the edge of the forest - there stood their new house!

Well, not exactly theirs. But who cared! It was going to be theirs for the whole two months!

Lucrece sped up, overlooking the occasional stumble on a stray rock on the village road.

The cornfield swayed past, peacefully shuffling with the calm winds. It brought fragrances - of grass, of moss, of the welcoming dampness of nature.

The porch was shaggy, its wood threatened to give a generous handful of splinters. It failed to spoil Lucrece’s joy.

“Look at this, Rico!” She took to opening the door. It was, of course, magical. She was very cautious not to use her own magic as of yet - she had a bagful of introductory books on the local magic works. The owner said the lock was the easiest thing - to just activate the spell that was imbued into the key. Hmmm…

There was this thing on her hand - they called it a Ring of Attunement. In this country everyone who didn’t do magic themselves for any reason, should wear one to use the majority of things around them. Peculiar!

However, Lucrece couldn’t feel the magic. She was what one could call a witch, but such deafness was frightening to her here. Well, she hoped to find the source of magic soon, anyway!

After several attempts to activate the key she wasn’t so adamant about her precautions. She’d been tested, of course. They said she had a potential of a fifth level - whatever that meant, - so she qualified for this particular rental. Why though, why wouldn’t this stupid lock open?!

She tried to press it to the door, she tried to move parts of the door, of the key, but there just was no keyhole in the door, so the key must trigger something, but it wouldn’t do anything!

“Let’s bust it through, ugh!” the cat grumped, tired of watching his mistress struggle over the simplest lock.

“Yeah, and lose the deposit” Lucrece huffed, “Things aren’t done like that in here.”

“A proper country, yeah.” He purred at the end, and Lucrece didn’t know if that was because of true appreciation or sarcasm possessed the cat. He was a regular mischievous black cat, after all.

She considered going back to the host to complain, but then considered it back, remembering that the host had explicitly said that he would be out of reach for the next two days. And it was rather shameful, too. She couldn’t imagine selling anything to people in the village if they remembered her by some kind of nickname like Lock-out-girl.

Lucrece sat on the porch, watching the sunset streaking the corn with lush orange rays.

“Are we even going to eat, ma’am?” the cat casually reminded her.

“Oh, right! Sorry, Ricotti, I … I’m just so confused over this damned lock!”

“Yeah, I can see that,” the cat gently purred, “Can I also remind you of one probably also hungry member of our travelling team?”

“Oh, crap! Poppy!”

“What?!” came a small sound from the top of the witch’s hat, “You need me or somthn?”

Phewph, she had been sleeping, Lucrece thought with relief. She didn’t accidentally lose her most precious treasure, her cutie-patootie fairy fae. Unlike the cat, who came into her possession quite consensually on both sides, the fae was a very lucky find that Lucrece had had to fight for. It would be a severe tragedy to lose her.

“No, no, nothing, my dear. You can come out and stretch out a little bit. Look around. It’s perfect here.”

Something howled. It was rather close.

The house had some formidable magical protection against the forest’s beasts - and they were plenty and rather dangerous here, - but they weren’t in the house!

“Mom, just call Dad,” the fae drawled, “I ain’t goin outside until we’re inside.”

Ricotti hissed at something, bowing his spine, “Yessss, and you better do it fassssst.”

Lucrece grabbed her blade and readied her potion belt, looking into the glummier side of the forest clearing. There was some movement, sure, but nothing that was particularly catching. Could be just wind getting tangled in the bushes.

“But- what if they get me?!”

“Who, beasts?” Ricotti’s line of argument was picked up by Poppy, her glowing head peeking out from the edge of the hat.

“The people!” Lucrece answered, panicked and frustrated.

“Why would they care?” The fairy still dangled upside-down, spreading faint sprinkles of light around herself.

“I’ve read it’s illegal!”

“Why did we come here then?! It’s a stupid country if calling for help is illegal!”

“No, I mean, every call has to be applied for and stuff!”

“Pff, call him NOW!”

The hat defied laws of physics, staying on the witch’s head when she jumped to the side to avoid being bitten by a funny-looking wolf, and its friend who finally revealed themselves.

“Can we kill it?”

“That-s-aaaa,” Lucrece had to swing her blade around a bit, “That’s something I remember that can be killed, yeah!”

“I mean, is it legal?” Poppy gave up on hat-surfing and took to flying.

“Should be!” shouted the witch.

Lucrece chopped the air again, failing to get the wolf. The other one took to actually casting and she turned to it, catching it mid-spell, its head off in a second. She didn’t need anyone’s help, she was good on her own.

Yet she wasn’t completely on her own, unfortunately. Poppy was riding the other wolf who had Rico in his jaws now, and Lucrece rushed toward it.

“Ouf!” The witch got her breath knocked out by someone third, and it immediately cast something onto her, and she rolled around because it burnt! Not letting her blade go, she rushed to get up and swished around, barely touching some other beast.

“Poppy, can you cast?” Lucrece shouted and got finally lucky at animal-skewering, her blade wounding the whitemaned fox-like creature with - what?! - several eyes.

“I don’t feel magic!” Poppy shouted, trying to pry the wolf’s jaws open.

Well, pretty much the same. Lucrece had to jump from the porch to chase the wolf, and Goddess knows she wore the skirts because it was beneficial for the mana flow, but what’s the use of it when it catches on a twig and helps her fall down, and she still couldn’t cast anything!

Lucrece made a trick move of a trick move to trick the wolf into thinking she was about to run, while she wasn’t, and turned the back to it, and it worked - the beast all but jumped onto her shortsword, which angled pathetically askew a bit, but still got into the flesh under the furs.

The witch took out the healing potion from her belt, carefully extracting the chewed-up cat from the mouth of the wolf.

“Huh,” She mumbled to herself, noticing the weird assemblage of the mouth of the wolf, “A single saw-tooth.”

She applied the potion to the cat. He wasn’t dead. Probably scared to death, yes. But the amulet tracker of the lives left on his neck told her that he still was good to go with his eight lives.

“Lucrece, we either run to the village for help or call the Master!” Poppy was panicking, frantically flying in front of the house where the bushes were making a division between the cornfield lands and the front sort-of yard of the hut.

No, no, they couldn’t call for Master.

Lucrece was so tired of running countries. She was so done with being five minutes to the outlaw - everywhere she went, something she wanted to do would not clash with the local cursed laws! And this country, Adenf, had so much to look forward to - the calls for demons were recently legalized, it was the end game for her!

She sat on the steps of the porch, listening to the forest. Sweaty, bloody, wrecked and about to cry.

Considered going to the village. A witch that couldn’t protect herself, hah! No, she would not create the bad reputation willingly.

The carpet of summons was in one of her bags. How would they know if a demon was summoned? After all, the summoning only lasted five minutes. Wasn’t enough time to chat even, just give out the task and hope he’d understand it well.

The fairy sat on the porch’s fencing.

“I don’t think more are coming,” Poppy said, swinging her tiny legs.

Lucrece wiped her hands on her skirt. Then she stood up heavily and took out flint and tinder, and began to gather dry twigs. She managed to start the fire when she heard yaps.

“That’s why it was so cheap, damn it!” she thought to herself.

She took a look at her arsenal on the belt. She had zero wish to go into melee again.

There was a tangle fence potion for some gardening purposes that she’d bought in the mountains. There were three more healing potions, she had it made in bulk as a trade off with some folks she helped to lift a curse. An ice potion which she failed to read the instructions for, so she had no idea what it did. And a fireball amulet with ten charges.

The yap repeated and a fire swiftly struck the general direction of the porch. If the beasts came this way every night, how had this property even survived?

The fire did not start though, the wooden porch, apparently, held some enchantment against fire. Some relief!

Alright, time came for drastic measures. If beasts were normal, there was always a normal way to make them go away.

And it wasn’t fire, Lucrece guessed, because these ones actually commanded it.

Lucrece ran up to her travel bag, took an iron cup, a souvenir from the mountains, and her mini-billy-pot.

“What are you doing?” The fairy was scared and got under the roof of the porch, like a bat, peeking out in curiosity.

“Something idiotic. I wish I could climb up to you,” murmured the cat, who still felt not up to the idiotic tasks obviously.

Lucrece began to emit absolutely wild yodeling while banging two metal kitchenwares together. The sound spooked the birds, and - whoa, they were big! Lucrece suppressed a flash of adrenaline and kept making noise.

She stopped for a moment and heard the rustle in the forest, hoping that the incoming pests were away-going. For some time it was just her breathing. The twilight sparkled with stars above the shadows of the forest’s edge. She hadn’t noticed when the sun bade goodnight. Suddenly Lucrece wished she stayed at the tavern. Maybe even stayed in the mountains. Stayed back.

She sniffled. No other sound than her own steps on the worn-out grass around the hut, and subtle susurration of the cornfield, as she started the fire.

The three beasts they slayed together were not known to her at all.

Lucrece took out her skinning knife and began to work. Starting from the paws so she could trade the pelt later, or in case these magical beasts bore any special properties for new, local recipes.

It was relatively quiet. She lacked the skill for these particular beasts, and it took her way longer to dissect one properly. She also lacked the bowls, and, you know, the proper kitchenware, so after skinning and rough division, she decided to just have a hind leg for some supper.

Lucrece had to undo her whole bag in search of salt. It was a wrap-up bag, thankfully, and when she unraveled it on the porch it looked like a bazaar vendor patch.

“Cooking from scratch again, m’lady?” Purred the cat, climbing onto her back and bumping her on the head. The hat was knocked off then and immediately into the fire. Lucrece cursed, Rico jumped off, the hat caught fire.

Lucrece all but wailed at that, it was the fairy’s road house, after all. She managed to put out the flame before it destroyed the enchantment.

“Rico, please. Just sit tight for a bit. I’ll be done with the leg soon.”

“And what will I eat?” Said the fairy, walking around the fire, observing the sword-skewered leg.

Lucrece sighed. “Fairies CAN, and in this case WILL eat meat. That is, unless they prefer to die of hunger.”

The witch herself was so tired she barely cared anymore for the meat she’d want to preserve, for potentially more guests from the forest, or for the fairy’s arguments against meat. Poppy said it was not conducive to her powers, and none of the fairies she knew ate the meat, and if she was forced to eat it, she would get sick, or stop flying, or grow ugly.

Lucrece just gazed at her, her eyes drooping, her chin on her hand, the elbow on her knee. Then she looked at the simmering meat and decided that it would still be chewable but already properly heated to be safe to eat, and put it onto the leathery leaf-shaped unfolded sack she used for all kinds of purposes. Once she soaked some bat’s wings in vinegar there. Another time she soaked her socks there. It was easy to purge, the leather being one of these Jontangian sheepskin types that was both stretchy and hard to puncture. Cost a ton back in the days.

Unloading the meat and cutting, she snickered to herself, how strange life was. Wolf’s meat, on the sheepskin.

“It smells bad!” Poppy complained, and Lucrece’s answer would be possible to call a snap, if it wasn’t so weak-voiced.

“Please, kindly shut up if you don't intend to praise the food.”

The cat didn’t seem to mind the scent. In fact he seemed to not be hearing the fairy’s commentary at all. He dug in. It was always a pleasure for Lucrece to watch him eat. Something about her familiar being healthy, she figured.

When they finished eating, Lucrece was bummed to realize there was no well nearby to drink water or to wash hands.

Yeah, not the kind of the first night she was looking forward to after all these tribulations they had to go through recently.

The shrub shuffled with something inside of it, right behind her.

“For Her panties’ sake,” she sighed, picking up her sword, “What is it there again?”

The next second an overgrown cinder bug jumped out of the bush, and she stepped out of its way, grabbing Rico. Poppy flew up like a fizzy drink cork.

“Luke, there’s like a ton of those there!” The fairy shouted.

The bug did not intend to go after the human and her cat, but it definitely liked the meat. Its siblings rolled and sprang from out of the bushes then, gravitating towards the beast pile. Lucrece watched them with curiosity, wondering if they could get away with, like, just standing there by the door and not giving away their presence. The bugs began to rub themselves on the meat, and Lucrece was hit with the nauseating stench at once, like someone opened a two-week old grave.

After a minute or two of chomping and chewing sounds, the only thing left of the slain beasts were the carcasses. Well, there goes the food and enchantment supply, but whatever. Lucrece was not dumb to not suppose these bugs wouldn’t mind munching a bit of them after that.

There were several interested movements towards the porch, where the three newcomers hid, but all was wiped by the next part of the spectacle.

Enter the snake. A floating snake. Lucrece dropped her jaw, all her flabbers gasted. She couldn’t even voice her astonishment at the huge, and, frankly, fat snake that began to prey on the bugs.

What the actual fire was that. She knew these places would be unusual, but for Luttar’s sake, flying creeper?

If that was a nightmare, she would love to wake up now, thank you very much. Even if it meant not to be able to go back to sleep.

The gigantic maw opened, vacuuming the bugs, squelching with the flesh, unappetizingly, nastily.

Come on, Lucrece, you did harder things. Don’t get scared of this air python now. You could possibly ride it, if you make friends with it.

The beast sniffed them out, turned its right eye at them. It was iridescent, catching the flecks of fire, and so intense. Lucrece smiled at it weakly. Hi.

Which was a dumb thing to do, but the beast was fed, so it just snarled at her, and seemingly decided to jot down the location of Lucrece for breakfast. It departed - as silently and smoothly as it came.

“Might I suggest we lay out the summoning carpet just in case we need it?” Rico said, and for once Lucrece agreed with him. They needed to sleep.

“Why don’t we just go back to the tavern?” Poppy whined.

Lucrece was setting up the candles on the ends of the embroidered star.

“Because, my dear Pops, it would create a bad reputation and we won’t be able to earn money here then,” the cat explained.

Lucrece had a feeling it wouldn't be the last time one of them asked this question, and probably at some point they would think that nah, screw money, we’re exhausted and want to go to bed somewhere safe.

Nevertheless, she had been in way worse situations, and this was no biggie. She sat by the door, sword in her hand, healing potion in the other, fire pendant out from her blouse. The fairy crawled in her hat - the only one with privilege of an actual bed in the enchanted room she had there. The cat climbed up somewhere into the ceiling of the porch roof.

Lucrece was prepared to be attacked. A proper hour she sat, straining her eyes into the darkness, but nobody came. She began to drop off.

The next moment she was talking to flowers. They were not buying the patches they ordered. Lucrece checked the patches, and they were ok, they were enchanted with water, nutrients and were supposed to be used when the headache came, but the flowers argued that they had no head, so she had to remake the patches so they could be put onto the buds, that’s where headache usually comes, the flowers said.

She jerked awake when the fire hit her face. She clapped it out, cursing, and rolled away from the next strike - the house gulped it down like nothing was easier for a wooden hut to not actually catch fire. Well, maybe the host was at least not lying about the enchantments. They held well.

The fire foxes were three, and Poppy flew out of the hat to start kiting one, while Lucrece exercised her best sword-slinging techniques. She was grateful to her past self for taking the lessons and not backing out of the practice whenever possible. This was something over the board though.

Lucrece slain the second fox and checked the stars. Well, another five or so hours to sit out until dawn.

The fairy flew out from behind the house shrieking.

After her came a small horde of assorted creatures, and no, Lucrece was standing fiercely against them, just hoping that the fairy makes it to her side. Lucrece stepped a bit into the porch, now trusting the house to be fire-resistant.

The moment she made sure all the beasts’ attention was on her, she grabbed Rico from under the roof by the scruff of his neck and activated the fire amulet, hitting the beasts in the faces with it.

Some actually caught her skirt, so Lucrece had to let go of the cat, shoving him into the corner. The fire blast licked the porch well, some beasts whined in fast retreat, but the fox - of course, it was fire-resistant fox, the one that had been kited around, - snapped at the skirt again, and Lucrece was actually seeing how the layers protected her from its jaws, but it wasn’t for long.

Soon the melee came, she was trying to get her sword out from its sheath, the beast savagely getting tangled in her skirt, and she was suddenly aware of the fire: the house did not catch it, no, but the field did. Oh, no, no-no-no-no!

That was the worst, that was the freaking worst!

The fox finally got a taste of her flesh then, and an awful zip of pain short-circuited all her horror and dismay at the responsibility of burning the farmlands on her third day in the country.

Rico jumped down onto the fox ferociously, and she had never seen him like that. She finished fumbling for the sword, when Poppy shouted at her, “Summon him! Now!”

And that was something Lucrece couldn’t agree more with. She rushed to the summon carpet that got overturned and ripped in some places.

“If it affects its work, I am so done, I am so gone,” she mumbled, and lit up the candles, fixing the carpet. The cat and the fairy were still fighting with the beast, Rico once again trying to get himself out from the maw.

Lucrece hastily began to say the words of the summoning spell. She felt no mana within her, which was both terrifying and pathetic. She inhaled deeply and started over, this time trying not to hurry. Made all the right passes. Nothing.

Panic was stifling her when she saw the fires undoing the cornfield, fast.

She all but prayed there and then. Oh Dear, the most present and kind Goddess to ever exist, as they say, let me just fix the bad things, no offense, but I need him!

And then, when nothing happened, she tried again, sniffling with tears of despair.

She forgot to step off the carpet, not hoping for the spell to work out, so when the center of the carpet darkened, the sense of levitation came onto her for a moment and then she was falling.

“Great,” she thought sarcastically, “And here I thought I was settling for Adenf."

She didn’t even scream, falling, she saw the ceiling of the hut above her in the hole - so bright, as if it was twilight out there instead of a deep night.

Suddenly her swooshing fall was stopped by someone catching her, hard with the arms thrown under her shoulder blades and under knees, and she screamed then, emitting one of the wildest sounds she heard from herself in her life.

“Sh-sh-sh, sh-sh, calm down!” The savior said, moving upward as fast as she had been falling before, “The crap you’re doing, standing on the carpet, Luke?!”

He swooped out, dropped her ungraciously on the wooden floor, and looked around. Swiftly detecting the problem, he spread his dark wings and rushed to the cat and the fairy, putting them out of trouble, killing the beast.

Poppy was already shoving him towards the field.

“What?! Why is the field on fire? What were you even doing here? Holy puddles,” the demon exclaimed and rushed to put out the fire.

His only advantage in this situation was his speed and scanning abilities. He knew where to get water, so he could stop the fires.

Note to self: never use this damned amulet in August.

Or in dry times, anyway.

Second note to self: stack up on trinkets.

Why hadn’t she done it beforehand? Well, a lot of them are banned in different countries. Fire magic is prohibited in certain parts of the Mountains, for example. So she didn’t bother to buy one until she arrived here.

“Ok, done and done. Anything else, my lady?” The demon was sweating. His five minutes were almost up.

“Door,” croaked Lucrece. “Open the damned door, please.”

“Uhm…” the demon said, “Sure.”

And he took her key, pushed the stone on it - just the way she had been doing! - and when he approached the door, there it was - the keyway, click, snap, tink, and the door was open.

“Did you try -” he started, but Lucrece just waved him off.

“Of freaking course I did, eat away and scrum.”

He helped her get up.

“Umm… are you alright, Luke?” He was sort of peeking into her exhausted face, “You’ve barely touched your mana.”

“I can’t feel the source here yet. Must be stress, or something. Eat before you’re out. Or else I’m gonna be charged again some extra next time for failing to feed you.”

“Yes-yes, alright, sorry.”

And the demon took a stance, drawing the mana out of her, emptying her, the luminescent waves freely flowing from the spot between her collarbones to his. He jerked, sniffed, and ripped the link abruptly, though Lucrece knew by the previous feedings, it was about the half of her mana pool.

“You sure it’s the right amount?”

“Killed the beast with bare hands, so,” He shrugged shyly, “Don’t actually need that much. And you need proper sleep. Hope you won’t get locked out anymore.”

“Yeah, no promises,” Lucrece mumbled and patted the demon on the bicep, going inside of the house. She dragged the carpet after her, but didn’t bother to clean up anything else.

Just dropped there on the floor. The only thing that mattered then was not the comfort of the mattress or a chance that the stuff outside could be stolen.

She was safe. It was all that was important then.

Published 02 Oct 2025