Author Note: Here comes the last NaNo update, since November is about to end. I'm at 48 thousand words and am halfway through writing chapter 23 out of the 35 expected. I'll let you know when the whole thing is done.
As Emira arrived at the Illusion Coven building, she was glad that the week was almost over.
Surprisingly, Emira beat Jen to her office. She hadn't come any earlier than usual, if four days of trends were enough to say it was as usual, but Jen's office was empty when she arrived.
Emira had been there a couple times at that point, but never for long enough to look around. Now that she had the opportunity, she wasn't going to pass it up.
When Emira sat down in the chair on the other side of the desk, she could finally see what all of the clutter was on her desk.
The papers, it turned out, were full of illusion spell theory. They were scribbled across uneven lines and included drawings of what the spells might look like. The diagrams listed layers together and formed complicated spells. From these, it seemed like Jen was studying complex illusion magic, far more complex that what Emira was learning at Hexside. Either she was researching it herself or someone else had given these to her.
There were also a couple picture frames on the desk, showing a small dog beast. Its image had been captured from numerous angles and was displayed prominently. As for the trinkets, they seemed to be various items. One was a deck of cards, another a set of small red balls in metal cups. There was a coin as well. Emira wasn't sure what they were for, or what they even were.
Emira wondered what was in the drawers, but was interrupted from her snooping by Jen's voice. "That desk suits you." She called from the door, causing Emira to snap her eyes up to her. Jen looked at ease, like she didn't suspect anything was amiss.
"Oh, hey." Emira stood slowly from the chair, playing it cool and pretending she hadn't been about to look through Jen's things. "Good morning."
Jen nodded at her, leaving the door to the office open as she fully entered. "Good morning." She returned the greeting. "I was just getting our job briefing, it's a good one."
Emira thought that her definition of a good job was very different than Jen's. "What are we doing?" She still asked; maybe things would be different today.
"There's a play being performed today and tomorrow that needs help with special effects and lighting. It's going to require some complex magic, but I'm confident that you can handle it." Jen said with a smile, bringing a spark of hope to Emira. Maybe this job would be good, she hoped it would be. "We have to go, so we can practice during rehearsal." She turned to leave the office, waiting outside the door to Emira to follow.
They shut the door and weaved back through the hallways to reach the front of the building, exiting out to the city streets. Jen said it was nearby, so they would walk instead of flying. Emira didn't mind that, as long as the weather was good.
While they walked, Emira wondered what kind of magic she'd get to do. It could be pyrotechnics, like fireballs. Another option was large colored or flashing lights, those would be fun to make. Oh but maybe it would be some subtler magic, like making something invisible and then have it appear on stage at just the right moment. All of them sounded fun; there were so many possibilities.
By the time they reached their location, a medium sized building with the word "Theater" plastered on the front of it, Emira was almost excited for the job. She followed Jen in, looking around the space as they walked through. Emira hadn't been to this theater before, but she had passed by it numerous times.
It seemed like Jen had been there before, since she walked through the lobby and into the back of the building like she knew where she was going. They passed through the hallway to a backstage area, where Jen found a witch with a clipboard.
In both construction and in theater, the witch with the clipboard was in charge. Emira mentally chuckled at that while Jen introduced them to the witch, who turned out to be the director of the play.
"I'm glad there's two of you, we need a lot of illusions." The director said, scribbling something down on her clipboard. "We need some fire in act 1, not real fire just an illusion," She clarified that like it had been an issue before. "Some confetti in act 2, and spotlight work throughout the performance." Behind the director, witches were scurrying around with set pieces and wearing partial costumes.
Jen thought about it for a moment, glancing at Emira. "I'll take the fire and the confetti; my coworker will handle the spotlight." What, no that was the opposite of what Emira wanted. She wanted to make the fire, not the spotlight. She didn't have a chance to protest before Jen continued. "Does she need to learn the movement for it?" Jen asked, which, despite being annoyed, Emira knew was a good question.
"No, we have a stage technician back there to do that. He'll cue her with the timing too." The director didn't look up from her clipboard while she spoke.
Once again, it sounded like Emira was getting the worse part of the job. Doing the lighting was not nearly as impressive as special effects on stage. It would probably be super simple magic too, any illusion witch could do it.
"Alright, thank you." Jen replied, then turned to Emira. "You should head up to the lighting, I'll show you how to get there." She turned back towards the front of the building, walking back the way they came. Emira followed behind sullenly, with her arms crossed.
They went all the way back to the lobby, where Jen stopped at a closed door. She pulled it open, holding it for Emira to pass. There was a winding stairwell ahead.
"It's just up these stairs, I'll meet you out front for lunch after rehearsal." Jen said, waving Emira inside.
Emira entered the door with a sigh. "See you later." She muttered, before starting her ascent up the stairs. Once the door was shut behind her, all of the light faded from the room. Emira cast a quick light spell to carry with her, illuminating each step in turn.
When she reached the top, she estimated that it had been about three floors of stairs. She didn't know for sure though, with the way they spiraled. At the top there was another door, which luckily was unlocked when Emira tried to open it.
On the other side was a small room, maybe ten feet across, with a witch sitting inside who didn't seem much older than Emira. He had a candle lit in the room for light, and was reading from a book that was basically just a stack of paper bound together. His head popped up at the sound of the door opening.
"I'm here to power the lights." Emira said before he could open his mouth, looking around the room as she did. Three of the walls were solid, but one had an opening. It was door sized and seemed to lead out onto some kind of rigging.
The witch popped out of his seat, shutting his book as he did. "Great, I've been expecting you." He had a cute smile, but even if he'd been closer to her age Emira wouldn't have been interested. "The name's Kyle."
"Mine's Emira." Emira tried to put her earlier irritation aside and be polite. It wasn't his fault she was trapped here. "I think we'll be working together for the next couple days."
"I expect so." Kyle replied, stepping towards the opening in the wall. "Let me show you what we'll be doing." He then stepped out onto the rigging. Emira trailed behind, more cautious about going out there. It wasn't that she was afraid of heights, but falling was not an exciting prospect. When she looked out the opening, she could see the stage and the seats below them. Maybe it had been four flights of stairs instead of three; it certainly looked like it from this height.
That was just another thing to push aside as she stepped out onto the rigging. It only extended about five feet out. Once out there, she could see one large spotlight to the left and the right. Kyle had gone right and lifted his hand to the spotlight.
"These are the lights we'll be using." He said, moving his hand away from the device and casting a spell. The spell caused the light to turn, changing the direction it was pointing. "I'll tell you when to turn them on and off. The focus of the spell is these devices here."
"Got it." Emira replied, unable to keep the dryness out of her tone. As she suspected, this magic was almost trivial. A simple light spell would be super easy to cast and even easier to maintain. She looked down at the stage, where the stage crew was moving set pieces around. She couldn't spot Jen, probably she was still back stage.
Kyle inched past Emira to adjust the other light. "We'll be doing the rehearsal soon. For now, want to try the spell?"
If she was being honest, Emira would've said no, she did not want to try the spell. Unfortunately, now was not the time for honesty and she had already committed to being polite. She lifted her right hand to cast it, quickly drawing two spell circles. When they activated, both spotlights lit up with bright beams.
Kyle whistled, seeming to indicate that he was impressed, and redirected them around the stage. The light moved well and didn't waver, likely due to some part of the device. "This is perfect." Kyle said, flashing her a thumbs up.
Great, wonderful, fantastic, at least he was happy. On the stage, the crew members were looking up at the spotlights, squinting against them.
A few minutes later Kyle told her to drop the spell, so she did. They were getting ready to start the rehearsal.
Once it started, Emira didn't pay much attention to the play. She also didn't take special care for the lights. She just turned them on or off when told, wondering when all of this would end.
She saw Jen's fire magic in her peripheral vision, but didn't pay it any mind.