Luz's Forms:
Semi-Basilisk Form- Luz default form is that of a tall average built light purple - skinned humanoid with messy brown hair with black streaks. She has two horns sticking out of her head and possesses dark purple scales all over her body. She has sharp teeth and webbed ears. Additionally she has claws, a tail with a tail-fin at the tip, and dark magenta reptilian eyes that is always kept no matter what form she takes.
Human Form- Luz's human form is that of a younger version of her mother with the exception of being taller than average, retains her sharp teeth from her default form, and keeps her hair in a pony tail.
Items/Equipments:
Eda's old training wand- An item that allows Luz to perform magic through unknown means. It is a light brown stick with a thicker, darker brown handle. Connecting the handle to the stick is a gray cylinder with a cracked screen. According to Eda it lacks a power source.
Potions- Luz keeps a variety of basic level potions on her person. She usually makes them with Eda's help.
Pets/Companions:
Gunther- a three headed Hydrarooster that Luz hatched from an egg she got from the beast keeping coven. Has the ability to breathe fire, spit acid, and generate powerful wind. Typically docile unless agitated. Usually nests on top of Luz's hair.
Jeff- The leader of the gnomes and generally the one who pass on Luz's instructions or commands to the other gnomes. Sometimes hangs out with King.
A/N: If you're wondering how I was able to update quickly well... I already had a draft for this arc. The first part at least so don't expect it all the time since this is just a rare thing.
Anyways enjoy the chapter.
I have made a fascinating discovery...
Upon further testing we have discovered that a basilisk's skin possesses unique properties that allows it to dispel magic to an extent that most magical attacks against them are absorbed...
It must be how Basilisks are resistant against magic...
Interesting...
I wonder what would happen if I were to mix basilisk skin with other materials that counteracts magic such as witch's wool...
I will need the aid of Vitimir for this one...
-Recovered Journal
Luz has always considered herself a patient and understanding person...
Which was to be expected since after all she was a freaking shape shifting demon who could suck out your life force if she wanted too...
Hell she has babysat children for her neighbors whenever she needed extra cash and even sat through her cousin's boring lecture about safety once.
But like every other person she has her limits especially when it comes to cheaters which just so happens to be her mentor, Eda Clawthorne, who she was sure has been cheating at their game of Hexes Hold'em.
Eda had introduced it to her this morning and after being explained the rules, her mentor asked if she wanted to play a few friendly matches which she agreed to.
Their first game was pretty normal which she won much to her mentor's surprise. It was the following ones where she started to losing repeatedly that she started to suspect that Eda was cheating since there was no way someone would pull a wild card five consecutive times!
So enough was enough.
"Ms. Eda, it was amusing the first time but it's... annoying when you keep cheating at our game repeatedly like really annoying" Luz said bluntly to the owl lady.
Eda looked taken back at being called out "What? You think I'm cheating, Luz? You're just terrible at this game"
Jeff, who had been watching the entire match spoke up "Uil dame bedriegt!"
King lets out a yawn. Not really caring about the game.
"See? Even Jeff says you're cheating" Luz said
"That guy is biased against me! Isn't he like your loyal beast? Besides no need to be a sore loser, Luz. After all we're not betting anything...yet" Eda said smugly before pulling out a card from her deck watching as her cards clashes with Luz's "Besides it's about time I end this game"
Eda then placed a card which glows green, and Luz's cards disappear in a flash of fire which formed Fiery words spelling out "WINNER: EDA" over the table.
Luz simply rolled her eyes at the display. It was cool the first time but not so much on the tenth one.
"Woo, I win!" Eda gloated before she got up close and pointed at Luz's. "In your adorable scaly face, Luz! Victory is mine and it feels so good! It feels...fluffy?"
Eda didn't know this but out of her arms, she began growing blackish gray feathers.
This alarmed Luz as she immediately got up and stood in front of King.
"Eda, your arms!" Luz said to her as she pointed to Eda's feathers.
"The curse is showing up again!" King shouted as Eda finally noticed her arms.
The Owl Lady lets out a yelp when she saw her arms and not wasting a second made a mad dash towards her room with the others in tow.
When the group arrived at Eda's room, they made their way to her closet for her elixirs and found the chest where she kept them. Eda took the chest from the closet and opened it for a new bottle but they soon ran into a big problem as they saw chest was full of nothing but empty bottles.
"Fuck! I'm all out of elixir!" Eda said as she grabbed an empty bottle.
"Uh last time that happened, you turned into this" Luz said before transforming only her head into the owl beast and doing a mock roar.
Jeff though visibly shuddered seeing the face of the owl lady's curse monster form, so freaky and more ravenous than any animal he or his fellow gnomes had ever heard of before. He remembered how it almost tried to eat him and his people if it weren't for Hooty coming in to save them just in the nick of time. They had honored the house demon for that.
"I know I should be repulsed, but that look is fierce" Eda said while admiring Luz's owl beast head.
"Eda! We should go before this gets worse. What if we get a repeat of the last incident!" Luz scolded as she turned her head back to normal with a frown.
"You're right, you're right. We need to head to the market but first before we head out, how about one more game of Hexes Hold Em? I'll shuffle." Eda said as she reached for her card but only grabbed at air. "Hey! What happened to my cards?!"
"You mean these?" Luz called out as Eda looked up to her, showing her the card in hand. "You need an elixir, not a card game! Gunther, if you would."
The three headed rooster nesting on Luz's head, flew up and grabbed the cards from her hand before flying out of the room.
"Damn it Luz! Tell your dumb chicken to get back here with my cards!" Eda exclaimed before running after the three headed rooster.
Luz only sighed in annoyance at that before saying "Come on King you're coming too"
"Market! I can pick pocket anyone we pass!" King shouted in glee before jumping off the couch and climbing up to Luz's shoulder "Onward my loyal subject!"
Jeff also did the same and climbed up on Luz's other shoulder. Without wasting anymore time they then ran after Eda to make sure she reached the market and not play another round of cards.
Later at the market...
After catching up with Eda, who had to literally pry the cards off Gunther who had attempted to eat them all like a sandwich, and getting a cloak to disguise herself, the group made their way to the market and were currently standing before the closed metal cover of a potion shop named "Mr. Elixir." Eda was banging on the cover while calling out her "guy" so she could get the elixir for her curse.
"Morton! Morton! Come on, I know you're in there!" Eda screamed as King and the others went to sit down on a bench, watching the people of the Isles go about their days,
"Uh, ju-...just a minute!" a voice, Morton, call out from the metal cover.
"Is there anything better than people watching in the Demon Realm?" Luz said out loud as she and her friends watched as a large egg rolled up to a group of monster. It opened and a large creature flew out of it before the group of monsters got inside and closed it, rolling away.
"NO! NO! Wait for me!" Tiny Nose, the small female creature, shouted as she ran up to try and catch the egg but missed it. "Dang it. Not again."
"The Curse of tiny legs." King said in sympathy as he watched Tiny Nose look down in defeat before she scurried away.
"Een schandelijke vloek" Jeff nodded in agreement.
"I feel you guys" Luz said before turning into a toddler version of herself "Short legs is truly a curse" there was a hint ot sarcasm in her tone.
King simply glared at her before yelling "You don't count!"
This only earned a giggle from Luz as she turned back into her human form with a sheepish smile
King, and Luz gasped in surprise when they spotted a group of red robed witches who were pulling a cart with a large worm like demon tied to it through the road.
"Woah! Who are those guys?" Luz asked as she went over to Eda with King and Jeff following. "Hey Eda, who are those creeps?"
Turning away from the metal cover, Eda frowned at the group as they continued to march through town.
"Those creeps are demon hunters. Nomads that wander the Isles and hunt the biggest, strongest demon beasts to sell them for a living." Eda said as the worm demon they caught roared at the nomads.
The one leading them, a man with dull green skin, red right eye and eye patch covered left eye, outer teeth with fangs, bandage wrapped hands, and a sword on his back, drew a spell circle and summoned lightning to his hand. He blasted the demon multiple times until it was rendered unconscious before stopping and turning to them, eyeing King a bit but not bothering with him since he was weak looking before looking up to Luz who seemed to have caught his interest.
"Demon hunters, huh?" Luz question as she maintained eye contact with the demon hunter who eventually looked away. She was not liking the vibes on these hunters as they reminded her of poachers back in the human realm.
"Yeah and I'll be next on their list if you don't open up, Morton!" Eda said as she turned back to the metal cover and banged on it to open.
The metal cover was then slid up as Morton had revealed himself, a man with shoulder length black hair under a funnel like hat, wearing a brown tunic over a white long sleeve shirt.
"Sorry, Eda! I was up all night poison tasting and for some reason I don't feel great.." he said as he held his stomach.
"You taste tested poison? Why would you even do that?!" Luz said incredulously at Morton who flinched at the outburst.
"That's dumb and that's coming from me!" King bluntly added which only got a nervous laugh out of Morton before he frowned due to having his feelings hurt
"Kids stop making fun of my potions guy" Eda said before pulling out an empty bottle of her elixir. "The reason I'm here is because I'm out of juice pal."
"Oh, gee. Lemme see what I can do" Morton said while taking one of the empty dial before ducking down and going through his inventory to check for elixir.
As Morton checked his shop, Luz looked back and saw the demon hunters leaving the street with their bounty before seeing that Skara and Boscha were in town too.
"Hey, guys!" Luz said as she ran over to them, getting their attention before she noticed that Boscha looked pissed off. "Hey, what's wrong Boscha? Did something happen?"
"Well" Skara frowned
"Them." Boscha simply said, too angry to say anything, as she pointed to a group of girls from Hexside.
From what Luz could see, they were Amity's friend group consisting of herself, the nice girl with glasses and two other girls she didn't know. They all seemed to be having fun, laughing, reading magazines, as Amity checked out a a book on what appeared to be demon beasts.
Luz briefly remembered the conversation she had with Amity after their duel
If you knew what she was like you wouldn't be defending her
She had wondered what Amity meant by that but she had decided to ignore it. Boscha was her friend and that's that.
"Amity's having a moonlight conjuring and invited everyone except Boscha." Skara said nervously while side eyeing Boscha who looked even more pissed at the mention of a conjuring.
"And that damn Blight keeps posting about it on her Penstagram!!!." Boscha angrily said as she drew a spell circle, summoning a small unfurled scroll and showed Luz a picture of Amity and her friends posing though the basilisk noticed that the nice girl with glasses that had helped her back in hexside was also in the photo and had an arm around Amity's shoulder.
'I never did get her name' Luz thought as she read the penstagram post.
"IT'S CONJURING NIGHT! NO LOSERS ALLOWED!" Luz read aloud incredulously. "What the heck? That's just mean!" Luz said as she looked to Amity's group a bit. It reminded her of that one time back on Earth the school bully Amber hosted a sleep over and invited everyone except her "And what's a "Moonlight Conjuring?""
"Well, once a year, a group of witches get together to tell stories and play games before they bring something to life using moon magic or whatever." Skara said as she pulled out a book and showed Luz the information on the conjuring.
"So it's like a slumber party with magic." Luz said with a nod
"Yeah but a conjuring requires at least 3 people to do it right otherwise it wouldn't work and since we don't have enough..." Skara said as she pointed to the page in the book.
"What do you mean? What about Celine and Bo wouldn't they make four with you guys?" Luz asked
"Unfortunately those two can't come. Bo had an accident during healing class" Skara said
"And Celine wasn't allowed to go by her crazy aunt" Boscha added.
Luz got a thoughtful look on her face "Well count yourself lucky then because you can have a moonlight conjuring with me" Luz said as she pointed to herself. "You guys plus me makes 3 people, which is, enough for us to have our own conjuring. What do you say?"
Skara grew happy at the idea while Boscha was surprised by it.
Just then Amity's group came walking by. Amity looked like she was about to say something to them before noticing Luz was with them. One of the Girl's with Amity spoke up though.
"Oh hey, it's that girl from Penstagram!" The girl said as she noticed Luz "Do you think we should invite her to the conjuring? She's like really cool and sweet with her beasts"
"No way. She can't even do magic normally. What's she gonna do? Stare at the moon all night? She's better off with her loser group. At least they have something in common" Amity said, mockingly as her friend group began walking away but they were heard by Luz and her group.
"I'm gonna kill that Blight" Boscha muttered but was heard by Skara who took a step away out of nervousness.
"Forget about them Boscha, what do you guys say to the conjuring with me?" Luz asked them again.
"You know what? I wasn't gonna participate in this stupid event but screw it! I'm in. I'm gonna show that Blight who's a loser!" Boscha said with a dangerous smirk.
"Me too! Though whose house should we do it at? Mine isn't available. Daddy has an important meeting with his co workers there" Skara said
"And my moms are doing one of their weird game night tonight so there's no freaking way we're doing it there" Boscha said
Luz looked at her friends with a thoughtful look before turning away. "Hmmm. I'll try asking Ms. Eda and see if we can have it at her house."
Luz walked back to Eda as she had just finished talking with Morton, nodding to him as he walked back into his shop.
"Alright, I got it. Thanks anyway, Morton." Eda said as she turned around and was met with Luz walking to her.
"Hey, Ms. Eda, I need to ask you something." Luz said to her.
"Something? What something?" Eda asked as she looked down to apprentice.
"I was wonder if I could use the house toni-" Luz said but was cut off
"Nope! Out of the question!" Eda quickly said as Luz looked upset at how fast she turned her down. "I've got business to attend to in the night market and I need you to watch my house and all of my precious trinkets." Eda said
"Look on the bright side Luz! You got me as company. We could play army games and even get some demon lessons done!" King said, trying to cheer up Luz while wondering what she wanted to use the house for
"No, not you King. You are coming with me to look out for pickpockets trying to rob me." Eda said to King before she smirked at him. "And so we can pick pocket people ourselves."
"Yay! Pickpocket!" King and Eda cheered as Luz coughed to get their attention again.
"In that case, I don't know why you told me no. I'll be in the house anyway with my friends, they wanna hold a conjuring and-" Luz tried to explain reasonably but was once again interrupted by a scoff from Eda.
"Again no. There will be no conjuring in my house tonight and to answer your question Luz it's nothing but baby magic, just sitting in a circle and holding hands." Eda said as she walked away with King followed by Jeff.
Luz furrowed her brow at Eda as she walked away, making her upset at how unreasonable she was being over the Moonlight Conjuring. What was the big deal? It's not like they would be thrashing the house during the conjuring.
"Maybe I should listen to Eda but on the other hand I really didn't want to let down my friends" Luz thought as Skara and Boscha walked up to her.
"So Luz, what did Eda say? Can we have the conjuring tonight?" Skara asked excitedly.
'One little lie won't hurt' Luz thought as she turned to her friends with a nervous smile
"We're good. We can use the house right after Eda leaves tonight." Luz said to them as Skara lets out an excited yell!
"YES! Finally a moonlight conjuring! I haven't to one since Amity banned me from hers!" Skara said with excitement before looking up to see the moon rising. "And the moon is rising in just right position! The celestial powers can only align like this around this time of year!"
"That's actually pretty cool. Well I guess we'll see you later then huh?" Boscha said to Luz before she looked to Skara. "Come on Skara. We should get ready"
"Moonlight Conjuring! Moonlight Conjuring! Moonlight Conjuring!" Skara chanted as Luz smiled at her friends before they made their goodbyes.
"Everything will be fine. It's just a slumber party except with magic" Luz said to herself as she ran up to Eda.
What's the worse that can happen right?
A/N: there you go. Part 1 of conjuring. Relatively simple chapter for now.
I'll be honest though what happens in the next chapter can go two ways. They do the conjuring and a bunch of other stuff happens or they don't and a bunch of other other stuff happens. Though a third mystery option is still in the air hehe.
Regardless I will take my time with it depending on what I decide especially with a surprise I have planned for it.
Anyways see you next time in Part 2