Inheritor Of Magic: The Magi King

The boats were waiting as Wolfe prepared to heal the damage to the last few Witches, and the two groups began to load themselves in, preparing to head to the village.

But then, something seemed to go wrong. One of the witches walked to the front of the boat and was immediately hurled back toward the trucks and out of the river.

Wolfe didn't see any magic being used, so either it was a very hidden Fae, or the forest itself rejected her.

"You, miss Witch, please step over here for a moment." Wolfe requested.

"Mary, please cast a truth spell for me."

Mary activated a truth talisman, and Wolfe placed a gentle hand on the Witch's shoulder.

"Did you lie when you swore to pay your debt?" 

The witch shook her head. "No."

"Then did you lie when you promised not to harm me and my people?"

Again, she shook her head, looking somewhat terrified. "No."

"Are you spying or carrying any transmitting devices?"

"No."

The amulet was still showing nothing but truth.

"Mary, please erect a curtain and check her for wiretaps that she might not be aware of. Then make her a new outfit, just in case the clothes she was wearing are bugged. That might be why the forest rejected her."

Mary erected a curtain made of one huge leaf, and after a few minutes of rustling, and one burst of flames, the curtain fell, revealing a freshly dressed witch in a plain dress, like the Morgana Coven favoured.

"I didn't find anything, and I didn't sense any talismans or spells being destroyed when I torched the clothing." Mary reported.

Wolfe had checked as well, and there weren't any tattoos on her that could be spell markings. The Witch was clean as far as he could tell.

"Please step to the front of the boat again." Wolfe instructed.

Again, she was hurled away from the forest, but this time, not onto land, but into the river further from the trees.

She came up spluttering and cursing, then stomped to shore in the shallow water before drying herself off with a spell.

Wolfe looked her over again, and still couldn't find anything wrong with her.

"Just wait here while I finish these last few of your companions, and then we will try to understand what went wrong." Wolfe instructed.

Wolfe purged the toxin from the last handful of witches at once, sending them running for the river in agony from the acid, then he turned to the problematic witch.

"Can you call your Familiar? It's probably much too far, isn't it? Or did they have you all bring them to camp for the extra mana flow?" Wolfe asked.

"No, they had us leave them at home, but with the Portal open, we could draw mana from them as if they were nearby." She explained.

"Can you summon it from here?" Wolfe asked.

"Maybe. Long Distance Familiar Calling isn't something that we practice."

Her weakened aura surged and she shook her head. "No, I can't call Whiptail from here." She sighed.

"Well, that rules out interference from the Familiar Bond. It's clear that you can't enter the Forest for some reason, and I will find out why. Just give me a few minutes." Wolfe assured her.

Wolfe wasn't sure what he could do, but the witches should be able to cast a [Finding] spell to locate the reason that she was rejected from the forest.

It might not be necessary, though. There was a metre-tall Fae man in a green coat glaring at them from the other side of the river.

"Pardon me, Good Sir in the green jacket. Do you happen to know why this witch can't enter the forest?" Mary called out when she noticed the Leprechaun.

"Aye. She stinks. Positively reeks of Black Magic. Dunk her in a vat of hemlock water and you'll see." The stout Fae man insisted.

Mary rummaged through her pouches for a moment, and then pulled out a sprig of hemlock, which made the witch panic.

"Please no, don't break the disguise spell. I swear, I won't do anything to harm your people, I have the mark, see." She pleaded.

"Mister Leprechaun, can you explain for me, like I'm a touch slower in the head than I look?" Wolfe asked, which made the Fae laugh.

"I'm not sure speaking would do much good if a Demon were dumber than they looked. But what I'm saying is that she's so filthy with curse mutation that I'm not letting her stink into this forest." The Leprechaun insisted.

"Alright, is there a way to make her not stink?" Wolfe asked.

"Yep, right simple. There's a nice tree here, just tie the witch to it, burn the body and the filth will dissipate."

"How about a way that doesn't involve killing her?" Wolfe asked.

The Fae looked annoyed, but he sighed and nodded.

"They're all evil anyhow, so it wouldn't be a loss. But if you find a critter, not one from the Forest, I will transfer the curse damage to it. Then you can burn that body to get rid of the stink, and she will only owe me one little favour."

Wolfe looked at the Witch. "It's a favour to the Fae, so it's on you. What do you want to do? I can keep you on guard duty here, or we can assign you as the resident witch to one of the beast kin villages in the area, but it looks like you're not getting in the Fae Forest as you are."

She carefully considered it, and then cast a [Vine] spell to pull a small field mouse to her.

"Will this one do the job?" She asked the Fae.

"It will." He agreed, and then his body surged with mana, revealing his status as a Rank Three Fae to everyone in the area, as he broke her disguise spell and began to transfer the aura damage from her to the mouse.

Once the disguise was broken, it was obvious that she was even more disfigured than Stephanie, but not by torture. Her body was covered in scales, random patches of fur, and horribly twisted, barely recognizable as human.

"You're from one of the units that were casting the Cursed Talismans to enhance the Monsters." Wolfe realized.

"They told us one month of casting curses would clear our debts, and we would be free from both them and our military service. But do you think they warned us what would happen to us once we started casting those awful spells? No, of course not. They only disguised us so that our fellow witches wouldn't mistake us for the monsters and kill us on sight." She ranted as her body twisted and reformed back into that of a Witch.

Her voice changed with every word, until it became a soft and gentle tenor. 

"And that's it done. Now, burn that rat before the corruption begins to spread." The Fae demanded.

Wolfe picked it up in the air with [Levitate] and then lit it on fire, turning the small rodent instantly to ash.

"Excellent. That smells infinitely better. Now, you're free to go into the forest, little witch. I'll be by sometime later to collect my debt." The Leprechaun told her with a wink, and then vanished from sight, even from Wolfe's [Detect Hidden].