---Entry 25/Divination 5/Connie's Cavernous Class---
Dear Gretel,
The next day of my aptitude witch test started with waking up with dawn rays annoyingly hitting me in the face, slowly realizing that the rest of me was lightly buried in leaves and earth. My nightly confinement was warm and comfortable, much more than I would've thought such a thing could be. Emerging from the confinement I shook off all the dirt which was easy to shake off, barely staining the clothes I wore. The morning was cool compared to my cover, but not bad. It crossed my mind in how my face was exposed and the wolves from the day before could found me and made a meal, but that explained the oddly familiar smell of a potion I forget the name of, meant to make the land more malleable to witch whims, and to ward off almost all wildlife, especially carnivorous predators. I would've appreciated having an extra pouch of it handy for what I knew was around, and whatever else I couldn't remember what roamed the forest, but after stretching and doing a little forest foraging, I was on my way deeper into the landscape.
A little bit off the beaten path from the tourist trails, I started climbing my way to a high ridge in order to get a good view of the area, for sunrise, who or what I might encounter, but most importantly the best path to take forward. Without a rabbit as a guide (thankfully for her sake, because I would've been tempted to make lunch out of her after the previous day), I was going to have to let instinct and intuition guide me forward. From the top of the ridge, momentarily enjoying the view, it was as much of a gambit as trying to find where next to go.
It sucked that using Transmutation was impractical since I didn't know where I was supposed to be in the first place. I had more energy that morning than the night before, but not enough to constantly do it, guessing where my next class was supposed to be. I could only assume at the time that my lessons before were based on Transmutation and Vitalum Vitalis, leaving me to guess what the next ones would be. But without a guide, I'd be walking into the wherever blind;
I hoped then that I wouldn't be wasting half or a whole day to get to it.
There was a pleasant breeze that crossed my face, flowed through my long hair, and made me think pleasant thoughts. Coincidentally, I decided to follow the wind's path down the slope of the ridge. They should really put signs in that
area like "sinkhole, BEWARE," cause about twenty steps down from the top of the ridge, I leaned hard into a hole that opened wide for me, and I sank through earth and even faster through air, surrounded, swallowed by darkness as I fell
fast into a cave.
I couldn't know how huge it was or how fast I'd be hitting the bottom, but life-saving panic got my flailing arms to starting pushing forward to exert telekinesis against myself, pushing my magic forward against a surface I could
barely see, the light I fell from far away. I exerted so much energy pushing down, once I felt something to keep me up and break my fall, I was exhausted again, faltering every few seconds, cycling between abruptly floating up and
falling. The last time I really faltered and fell maybe five feet to the eventual bottom, hit my head hard against stone.
***
A throbbing headache brought me back to life, the silver-lining proof that I hadn't died. I cradled my head, taking deep breaths and trying to banish the pain through sheer will; concentrating on one problem at a time, I know at the
time I was trying to tend to that and not add onto the how I got dropped into a pitch black cave where I couldn't be found to add to the hurt in my head. Once my head started to subside a little, I starred up at the ceiling of where fell, unable to find the hole as it may have filled itself when the ground above caved in.
With no light above or off in the distance of any direction, I sat in the cool, damp wetness of gravel, momentarily dejected. In retrospect, I should've been a shade more terrified or frightened given my circumstances, but the general stubbornness of Cherish Kwan, plus knowing I had a possible future to prevent beyond the cave gave me annoyed perseverance. It was good that it never occurred to me that since that fateful divination, I was changing the course of my future, and there was nothing that guaranteed me leaving that cave alive.
Many of my senses certainly didn't aid in any guarantees, seeing next to nothing, hearing too much with underground streams running loudly against the cries of probably hundreds of bats above. Smells of water and batshit were no help either, and I didn't dare bother to taste anything down there besides humiliation, assuming being where I was wasn't planned. Once I calmed my pulse and the throbbing mostly ceased, I stood up, still feeling the aches and pains across
my body from the fall, cursing my luck or whoever had a hand in leading me down here.
Before I could start to move anywhere, the real fear kicked in as my muscles seized up a little from hesitation; I had no idea where I was going, or which direction had a pitfall ahead that I couldn't see coming. Transmutation was even
riskier as I couldn't judge where I'd be teleporting to, if I had the energy to do it enough, which I didn't. I certainly didn't feel like trying to borrow some lifeforce from a swarm of bats looking to take my whole life in return.
It took way too long for the correct idea to spark in my head, but once it hit, I smacked my own head, stupidly making it throb again before I pulled at an already-torn piece of my shirt to light the end of it. I kept the fire low burning, despite it's urge to burn the whole piece of cloth quickly. Circling around with the low visibility the flame gave, I got some bearings at least twenty feet ahead of me, enough to show a small path towards a cave.
Before I could head in that direction, a large spritz of water came out of nowhere to douse the flame. I immediately backed up to the nearest wall I knew was nearby, scanning the darkness for whoever threw water at me. The scan didn't
last long as another spritz hit me square in the face. I coughed and struggled as some of it hit got swallowed and snorted; I growled in anger as I covered my face, wondering who was attacking me in the darkness. It had to be a witch,
as the formation and launching of the water like a high-powered water gun greatly suggested Telekinesis.
A light chuckle echoing from the distance gave me a good idea of which witch was targeting me.
"I'm going to kill you, Connie," I muttered softly, wanting to scream, but not wanting to throw bats into the equation.
Another soaking spritz hit me in the chest, strong enough to knock me back a step against the wall.
"You'll have to find me first," her low voice traveled all over the cave walls, giving me less of a hint to go on. Chancing it, I ran in the direction of the cave, dodging as many watery strikes as I could. Blocking her attacks with a
Telekinesis wall helped a little to escape more dampness. But as I got distracted with getting hit in the foot, almost making me stumble, and a hit to the back of the head, anger got me to send a fireball back in Connie's direction,
uncaring of how much it could hurt her or how much it blisters the hand of a Pyrokinesis novice like me. It didn't look like I hit anything as the fireball exploded on the rocks upon impact, embers looking for something else to burn
before dying on the cool waters.
Seeing it from deep into the cave, energy levels heightened by anger and adrenaline, I ran to the opening at the other end and spread a light wave of unspecific Pyrokinesis outward, hoping it would hit something ignitable. Thankfully
bare branches growing somewhere out of the wall caught fire, and became a light source to use.
"Very clever Cherish, very clever. Not many would think to try that trick."
"They have a choice right now. I don't."
