Kaufetag 1, Sixth Lunar Disappearance, 50 CE | The Owl House

"Pay attention, kiddo. Hexes Hold'em is one of the most complex games on all of the Isles, but it's also one of the most popular. Any creature worth their weight in Selkigris knows how to play," Eda explained, setting her deck on the table. Owlbert, who was perched across from her, did the same.

"So how do you play?" Luz asked from her spot on the couch.

"Well, the long and short of it is that you've got two main types of cards: lands and spells. Land card give you bile for certain Humors, which can then be used to cast spell cards. Each player gets a certain amount of health, usually 20 bits, and whoever drops to 0 health first wins."

"Oh, so it's just like Hocus-Pocus: The Get Together." Luz said excitedly. Back in the Human Realm, she was the founding member of Gravsefield High's Hocus club. She was also the only member.

"I have no idea what that is, but sure." Eda replied flatly. "Now, let's see what my hand is." Eda drew 7 cards at random from her deck. A mischievous smile grew on her face. "Ooh, momma likes this."

Owlbert then drew his 7 cards and let out a satisfied trill.

Eda went first, placing down Titan's Knee and casting Raging Fairy.

Owlbert countered, putting down Hidden Waterfall as his land card and attacking with Gore-nado.

The game was afoot.

Luz watched on, enraptured, as the two battled it out on the coffee table. Eventually, Owlbert's forces had nearly overtaken Eda's, leaving the Owl Lady with only three health left. The palisman had a smug look on his face as Eda's attack opportunity rolled around.

"Now, kid, when your opponent thinks their victory is assured, that's when you pull out your wild card." Eda pulled a card from her hand and slammed it down onto the table and all of Owlbert's cards were instantly incinerated. The fire then coalesced above the table, turning into a message that read "WINNER: EDA".

"Haha, yes! In your cute little face!" Eda gloated, jabbing a finger at her palisman. Owlbert responded with an annoyed hoot and flared his wings, hopping off the coffee table.

"I love the feeling of victory. Say, have you guys seen any voles recently?" Eda said, collapsing onto the couch and draping her arms over Luz and King.

Suddenly, feathers sprouted from the Owl Lady's arms, with more popping up from the neckline of her dress. Distressed, Luz jumped to her feet and yanked King into her arms.

"Eda, you're a little more… feathery than normal," King said.

"What do you mean? I took my elixir this morning. At least, I think I did." Eda summoned a mirror and looked for herself.

"Oh this isn't good." Eda said, getting off the couch and running into the kitchen. She began throwing all the cabinets and drawers open, looking for the golden liquid that would placate her curse. There were none to be found. Running up the stairs and looking in her nest-side chest had similar results. Luz and King entered the room as she closed the chest.

"Well shi-" Eda's eyes flew to King. "-itake mushrooms, I'm all out of elixir. Let's hope Morton's stocked up. Come on, kids, we're going to the market!"

Eda banged on the grate to the Mr. Elixir stand. "MORTON! I know you're in there! Open up before I get hungry for Langue de Nerd!"

"Just a minute, Eda." A voice weakly called through the grate.

Luz, once again donning pointed ears, and King took a seat at a nearby bench, with Luz taking in all the wonderful oddities that lived on the Isles.

Luz let out a content sigh. "Ahh, is there anything better than people watching, King?"

"Hmm." King tapped his claw against his skull, thinking long and hard about the question. "Conquering my enemies and bathing in their blood? But beside that, no."

Luz looked across the street, where she saw three witches waiting at what looked like a bus stop. Suddenly, a massive egg fell from the sky and cracked open upon smashing against the ground. From the remains of the shell, a cavalcade of demons and witches emerged, hopping out and walking away as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Given, this was the Boiling Isles, so it was ordinary. The three witches who were waiting carefully climbed into the shattered egg, only for it to magically reconstruct itself and start rolling away.

"Wait for me!" A shrill voice cried out. Luz turned to see the conspiracy theorist from the Conformatorium running towards the egg, only to accept defeat and slow to a walk.

"Oh the curse of tiny legs." Luz said, shaking her head.

"Yeah, being tiny sucks." King added.

"But if you weren't so tiny and adorable, I wouldn't be able to do this." Luz said, wrapping King up in a surprise hug.

"Ahh! Let me go you heathen!" King cried out.

A long, loud screeching sound assaulted Luz's eardrums. She turned around to see that the Mr. Elixir stand was now open for business, and the namesake Mr. Morton Elixir was barely out of his teenage years.

"Sorry for the hold up. I was up all night testing a new Liquid Courage potion, and I'm not feeling the best." The apothecary apologized.

"Well sorry to break it to you, but I'm all out of elixir. I need a fresh batch ASAP," Eda said.

"I'll see what I can do." Morton said, retreating into the back of his stand. The sound of bottles clanging together could be heard seconds later.

Luz took the opportunity to do some more people watching. As she scanned the pedestrians that walked around, her eyes landed on two very familiar faces.

Running from the stand and over to her friends, Luz greeted Willow and Gus.

"Hey, guys! How's it going?" When the two didn't reply, Luz noticed the dour looks on their faces. "Wait a minute, what's wrong? Who do I have to go defend your honor against?"

"Them," Willow said, jerking her thumb towards a group of young witches that Luz didn't recognize.

"Boscha's having a moonlight conjuring, and she's invited everyone but us," Willow explained with a frown.

"Plus, she keeps posting about it on her Penstagram account," Gus added, summoning his scroll and showing the announcement post to Luz.

"'Conjuring Night 2nite! No dweebs, dorks, or half-witches allowed!'" Luz read. "What a jerk!" She paused when she realized she had no idea what the event actually was. "Hold, on what is a moonlight conjuring?"

"Well, you spend the night at someone's house, and you tell stories, you play games, stuff like that." Willow replied.

"So it's like a slumber party! We have those back in the Human Realm. I never got invited to one though." Luz responded.

"And then there's the main event: bringing something to life with the power of the moon!" Willow said excitedly.

"And there's the twist. Should have seen that coming, honestly," Luz replied.

"Willow and I have never been to one. You need at least three people-" Gus said.

Luz gasped. "I can be the third person. We'll definitely have more fun than them. They probably hate having fun."

"Hey Half-A-Witch! Are you still looking for an invite? Too bad you've got no talent, then you might have gotten one," the triclops bully said.

Willow growled and small vines burst through the ground. Luz yelped and batted at one of them. "Hey, don't take your repressed anger out on them. Take it out on, like, a punching bag or something. You know what? Let's stick it to those snobs by having our own moonlight conjuring," Luz said.

"Really? That means I'll finally be able to cross off something on my bucket list!" Gus said, his face lighting up.

"What else is on your bucket list, Gus?" Luz asked.

"Owning a genuine human bucket. I want to store all my human treasures in it."

"Well, I can probably find one in this week's haul. You can have it for free."

"Awesome!"

"Alright, I'm gonna go check with Eda and see if she'll okay us doing the conjuring at the Owl House."

Luz ran back to the Mr. Elixir stand to find Morton, Eda, and King talking about the night market.

"Hey Eda!"

"Yeah, kid?"

"Willow, Gus, and I want to do a moonlight conjuring tonight and we want to do it at the Owl House. Can we do it, please?" Luz made sure to look as cute as possible while asking, batting her eyelashes and folding her hands in front of her.

Eda contemplated for a moment. She knew the kid was pretty trustworthy, and it wasn't like she and her buddies would be able to animate the entire house or something. Eh, what was the worst that could happen?

"Sure kid, just don't do anything that I would do at a conjuring. Besides, I'm gonna be doing some very not safe stuff tonight and I need you to watch the house, so your pals can tag along as long as they don't break anything important."

"Yes! Thank you so much, Eda. I won't let you down, promise."

Willow and Gus ran up to Luz, hoping to hear good news.

"So is the conjuring gonna happen at the Owl House?" Gus asked.

"Yup! Eda gave us the go ahead as long as we don't break anything," Luz answered with a grin.

"Sweet!" Willow said.

"We're gonna do a conjuring! We're gonna do a conjuring! Conjuring! Conjuring!" Willow and Gus chanted in a sing-songy voice.

As night rolled around at the Owl House, Luz glanced nervously at the moon. She had played far too much The Legend of Grizel: Borrindo of Space last year, and this moon looked eerily similar to the one in the game. Hopefully this moon wouldn't crash into the Isles and end life as she knew it. That would kinda suck.A sudden voice snapped her out of the trance.

"Luz, I'm heading out. Let your friends in when they show up, don't destroy the house while I'm away, and please, for the love of the Titan, don't let Hooty eat anything he's not supposed to."

"You've got it." Luz replied, giving the Owl Lady a salute. "Hey, uh, where's King?"

"He's right here." Eda said, opening her cloak to reveal a sleeping King strapped to her in a bright pink baby carrier. King let out a small snore. "His body just shuts down when he's like this. Watch this."

Eda move from side to side and King didn't even make a noise as his body flopped around like a ragdoll.

"Aww, he's like the world's cutest little puppet." Luz said, lifting and dropping one of his feet.

"Alright, we've really got to get going. Remember, kid, you can have fun with your friends, just don't do anything crazy, capisce?" Eda said, opening the door and stepping outside, with Luz following suit.

"Mmhmm. Loud and clear. Have fun breaking the law!"

"You know it. Ok, byeee!" With that Eda flew off to the night market. Luz waved goodbye for a few seconds before turning to head back inside.

Suddenly, two bushes that Luz hadn't noticed exploded, only to turn into Willow and Gus, both of whom were now dressed in regular clothing.

"Holy mother of Titan!" Luz screamed at the loud noise. "Oh, its just you two. You couldn't have given me a warning? I think I'm deaf now, thanks."

"Blame Gus. It was his idea," Willow said immediately.

"What, you think I wasn't going to do a super cool dramatic reveal?" The illusionist replied.

"Yeah, well I would have thought it was cooler if my ears weren't ringing," Luz said, shaking her head.

"Sorry." Gus said, looking down at the ground.

"It's fine," Luz assured him. "Let's just go inside and set up the conjuring stuff."

Luz escorted the two into the living room.

"So, we've got all your moonlight conjuring needs handled. We've got snacks, we've got items from the Human Realm, we've got-"

Gus gasped. "A BUCKET!" The young witch ran over to the pile that was the week's haul from the Human Realm and yanked out a plastic bucket.

"And the best part is is that we actually have enough people to do a conjuring!" Willow added. "I just know this is gonna be great."

"I never asked, how does this conjuring stuff actually work?"

"Well, you first have to figure out what you want to animate," Willow explained. "Since this is our first one ever, I think we should animate something important. Do you have any super meaningful things from the Human Realm?"

"I've got a picture of me and my mom. Would that count?"

"Yeah, that'd be perfect. Go get it. Be fast, though. The moon will be in position any second now."

Nodding, Luz ran up the stairs, two at a time. Opening the door to her room, she spotted the framed picture atop her dresser. Grabbing the photo, she turned to head back down the stairs.

As she did so, though, the moon shifted into position.

Rays of moonlight, imbued with the magic that only a celestial alignment could provide, shone through the window.

One of those rays struck Luz.

As if she had been shot, the basilisk collapsed to the ground, the picture flying from her hand and the glass shattering.

A bloodcurdling scream echoed through the halls of the Owl House.