“So this is what you look like.” Mused Lucia jollily.

Nicola turned, to catch a glimpse of her mistress, the meadow grass brushed over her feet.

“Mistress! How did you get here?”

Lucia smiled “get where? Technically we are still sat together inside our room. But if you insist this is: how can I explain it? Another world contained entirely inside your head.”

“Another world?”

“Behold! The landscape of: your soul.”

Nicola looked at the mist filled meadow. “This is my soul?”

“Well the landscape is: the weather is more related to your emotions.” Mentioned Lucia; heading carefully down to the lake side. “It could be quite pretty once you settle down.”

“What do you mean by that Mistress?”

Lucia crouched down by the water’s edge, playing gently with the lake water whilst she thought. “Well just think about it: how long have you been a girl, or young woman I should say? No more than two days: less even. You are currently in a state of fear and confusion: not knowing whether this change has made your life better or worse?”

“I do not know yet if things are better or worse Mistress.”

“That is the point that I was getting to.” Answered Lucia. “Anyway: I brought you here for a reason: and that reason is to learn.”

Nicola watched as Lucia lifted a swirling ball of water from the lake: raising it to shoulder height.

“The first step is to learn how to concentrate your energy like this.”

Nicola stepped carefully down the hill, before walking onto the surface of the water: the altered reality supporting her weight.

“So what do I do?”

Lucia smiled “Only you will know that when you eventually get it. I will show you once more how I did it: so watch carefully.”

Lucia let the ball drop back into the water, causing it to burst as it was re absorbed into the lake.

“Now watch and learn my apprentice.” Lucia commanded, leaning back down into the water to create a second sphere for Nicola to study.

Nicola sat down: watching her mistress intently, not wishing to miss any detail of the process being shown to her.

She stretched her lithe supple body in boredom, letting all the muscles pull taut against each other and spreading her large draconic wings in the process. She relaxed gently, feeling the rough clothes scrape against her soft silky skin.

“I am bored.” grumbled Xela glumly.

Xaire looked at her sister whilst pulling her body into another stretch. “I am too, but Mistress Adela told us to stay here until she had found her associates. It might be best if we follow her orders.”

“I guess that you are right.” Sighed Xela: in resignation.

“I disagree.” Purred; a third voice.

“What do you mean Xyn?” Xaire asked with some concern.

“Well what the mistress does not see or hear, she does not know.” Xyn replied with an evil smile.

“What do you suggest sister?” Xela asked perking up and raising her wings in trepidation.

“We hunt some humans: that is, what I suggest.” she replied.

Xaire leapt up from her stretches. “No sister: I believe we are here in this building for a reason. Mistress wishes for us to stay hidden until we are all ready.”

“Ha! You really believe that Xaire? Then you are more of a goody-two shoes cunt than I expected!” Taunted Xyn.

“You bitch.” growled Xaire: her nails extending into claws.

“Is that all you have?”

Suddenly Xyn yelped in pain as Xaire sliced her claws across Xyn’s face. She brought her hand up to the open bleeding wounds which cut like deep red trenches from her left forehead across her small dainty nose to her right chin.

“You will pay for that!” she ejaculated in anger: drawing her own claws ready to strike.

“If you can get me: that is.” Xaire snarled.

Xyn yowled in anger as she leapt towards her sister: claws ready to strike at her heart. Xaire skipped backwards before bringing her foot upwards in a sharp kick to her sister’s face: causing her to go flying across the large empty warehouse.

Xela laughed at the fight “Things are not boring anymore!”

Xyn landed hard on her right wing: causing it to snap. She cried out in pain, attempting to right herself in order to lunge again at her sister.

“Don’t even try it: even before our mistress called us here I was always better than you in a fight.”

“Oh were you really?” Mused a voice; from the door of the warehouse.

The three of them looked to see a group of women shadowed by figures of differing forms.

“Mistress Adela!” shouted Xela running to the woman and giving her a warm hug.

Adela smiled, stroking the demon girl’s hair. “You seem to be three very interesting children that I called.”

“I am sorry mistress. Me and my sister ended up in a disagreement.” Apologised Xaire: dropping to a prostrate bow.

“I see.” Was all the woman would say.

Around her the others found a place to seat themselves, with masters and demons sitting side by side. Slowly the three sisters found their places beside their mistress.

One of the women: the one accompanied by a horned giant man rose slowly.

“Are we all here?” she asked.

“It seems we are Magae.” Replied Adela.

“Then we will begin the meeting.”

Again Nicola knelt down, placing her fingers just beneath the surface of the water. She had lost count how many times she had done this now or how long the two of them been within this other world. Only twice had she seen Lucia create a sphere of water: and although the second time Nicola had been paying attention, she was not sure if she had noticed the trick of the spell: at least she presumed it was a spell.

She breathed slowly: trying to visualise the still water beneath her becoming a solid sphere. She watched as the water began rippling: first around her fingers and then slowly a sixth ripple began to flow at the epicentre of her fingers right where the other ripples intersected. She continued to concentrate: this seemed to be a good sign from her previous attempts, as once this rippling started it would be followed by water drawing up her hand. She watched as the water began to behave as it had done the last two times: yet now she began to exert some movement to it. The strands to climbing water began to stretch from one finger to the next, creating a slow moving bubble in Nicola’s hand. She tried to concentrate more, gently forcing the bubble to move faster, to draw up more water from the lake. Gradually the movement of the water thickened the walls of the bubble: a point that Nicola had not yet reached before. Strangely the faster that the water began to move the easier it was to fill the ball. Nicola peered carefully at the hemisphere of water and the swirling whirlpool beneath it.

“I think I have done it.” She muttered to herself.

Quickly she lifted the mass of water out of the lake, trying her best to keep the shape of a sphere. It wobbled slightly before pulling itself away from her hand and floating an inch above her hand. Nicola continued to concentrate: condensing the ball and slowing its rotation. It began to ripple in a counter rotational wave, causing the water mass to shrink further and further. She waited for it to stop its rotation. Nicola breathed out heavily, relaxing at her achievement.

Lucia calmly watched her apprentice: already she had about twenty five attempts to channel her energy, the first step to learning magic. Each time she seemed to be improving slowly but surely. She studied carefully how Nicola appeared to be progressing: had she worked out how to create the sphere of water all she needed to do now was keep it stable.

Nicola yelped as the sphere suddenly quadrupled in size turning into a large heavy ball of ice. She managed to skip back over the water before the huge lump of ice pierced the water’s surface where she had once stood.

“At least she is almost there with it.” Lucia mumbled to herself. “I had best train her in something else before she does herself a mischief.”

Lucia rose from her patch of grass making her way towards the lake, before carefully wading over to where Nicola was standing about to prepare another attempt at manipulating the water.

“All right! That is enough of that for today: there is something else I wish to teach you.” Shouted Lucia; in a sympathetic command.

Nicola stopped and looked towards her Mistress who was standing waist deep within the water of the lake.

“What is it Mistress?” she asked, clear curiosity in her voice.

“I am going to manipulate the water so that you are also at the same depth as I am: I want you to resist me and hopefully keep us both standing on the water’s surface. That is all I am going to tell you, the rest you must work out for yourself.”

Nicola looked at Lucia in confusion: until she felt the icy cold of the water begin to creep up the outside of her boots. She half panicked, causing her breathing to increase in rate.

“Keep calm and push!” commanded Lucia.

Nicola looked at her mistress, calming herself: this was her training so she must do her best. She began to feel for the source of the pull that had begun to drag her beneath the water. Nicola seemed to surprise herself when she found that the pull was coming directly beneath her: she focused hard trying to counter the pull as best as she could. Strangely it came to her almost as if it was second nature and the speed of her descent slowed until she came to a stop: water now up to her thighs.

“Good. Let us see if you can maintain that.” Shouted Lucia: beginning to increase: the strength of the pull.

Nicola realised what was happening and pushed against it, increasing her concentration on the push to equal or even exceed that which Lucia was exerting. Slowly she began to rise so that the water was now just above her boots. Slowly a strange pain began to manifest itself in her mind as she pushed harder and harder against the power exerted by Lucia. Until suddenly she collapsed: her mind becoming nothing more than darkness.

Red strings criss-crossed between the gathering of demons and masters: each string attached to the forehead of another creating a network linking the mass of minds together as one. Their breathing slowed to a gentle pace as did the beating of their hearts: or what was left of them. The wire vibrated and twitched every now and then, as someone made an involuntary movement in the silence of the warehouse.

“Wow this is beautiful! Who created it?” shouted Xela in an elated joy at their new surroundings.

The volcano bubbled and spat below the assembled group of demons and humans.

“I did.” Asserted the woman: known as the Magae.

“I am surprised that a mortal like you would be capable of creating such a place as this.” Dismissed Xyn sceptically.

The woman smiled. “What makes you think that I am a mortal?”

Xyn looked back at the woman, seeing her fangs bared in warning she re considered her opinion.

“Not all is as it seems is it?” commented the giant.

“It seems not.” Replied Xyn. She looked at Merdtz sceptically: it was clear that he was significantly powerful, meaning that his mistress was someone important among these mages.

Adela stepped forwards to address the group. “Lady Shide brought us here for a reason: one which she will explain.”

“Thank you Adela.” Began the Magae: Shide. “You may wonder why I asked for us to talk here and not directly in the warehouse.”

Nicola’s body hurt from the fall: she tried to remember where she was as her mind raced. The last thing she remembered was being at the lake and the meadow with Lucia, when something happened: she had blacked out and collapsed. The woman looked around her new surroundings: no longer did the mist cover the meadow or the gentle icy lake: but a huge blackened hillside covered in a swirling ash cloud and huge boulders. Slowly she made her way up the slope, curious as to whose world this was: could it be Lucia’s? It was not long until she managed to see the ridge at the peak of the hill: an area wreathed in flame, in which stood a large group of people. Unsure about her predicament, Nicola lowered herself as she approached the group ahead of her. As she moved closer: she noticed that many were not human, no they seemed to be comprised of demons. All of them seemed to be gathered around a single woman in the centre of the group.

Nicola could just make out that she was in earshot of the conversation.

“Thank you Adela. You may wonder why I asked for us to talk here and not directly in the warehouse. Personally I believe this to be a quicker and safer place to discuss things, it is unlikely that any of the healers would be able to penetrate the net we created and overhear what I have to say. We will wait until the Caeruleus plague takes hold further in this city of Rhaeadr. At that point it is likely that an assignment of white healers will have arrived: whereupon we eradicate them all: Before opening the gateways for our followers to appear.”

Nicola strained her ears, trying to pick up what another of the group were saying, before a deafening roar rose up among them.

“All Hail Lady Shide! May the empire grow and prosper under her rule!”

Nicola listened as the phrase was repeated before a wet sensation began to force its way onto her head.

The bucket of water forced her awake, drenched and gasping for air. Nicola breathed quickly in response to the shock, slowly registering her current surroundings.

She was naked: that was evident from the water which flowed over her shoulders and breasts: soaking her hair and dripping from her horns. She looked towards the athletic nude woman before her: slowly registering her identity.

“Are you all right?” Lucia asked with concern, placing a hand on Nicola’s shoulder.

“Plague.”

“What?”

“Caeruleus Plague.”

“Where?”

“City of Rhaeadr.”

“How do you know?”

“Slipped in. Someone’s world. Lady Shide. Trap.” Gasped Nicola; before blacking out.

Lucia looked at her apprentice with concern.

She had managed to slip into someone else’s world: a world where she had acquired information. This was strange even for a white healer: no wonder she had disappeared before Lucia: resulting in their connection being broken.

Carefully she lifted her apprentice into her own bed: laying her down carefully whilst drying her body vigorously. She then covered Nicola in several layers to keep her warm and left the bucket should she vomit at any point.

“Sleep well my apprentice.” Lucia whispered as she left the room.