Story: All the Sea and Stars - Village Witch #11

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11th session of the solo TTRPG Village Witch, this 770 word story was inspired by a back channel prompt from FB user Sarah Becca and fills the "Pull a rabbit out of a hat" prompt for the 2023 February Ficlet Challenge Day 7. You can read the earlier stories for this series on the landing page for Village Witch - Edwina! 

All the Sea and Stars

   The storm raged over Murkwell through the night, and although Edwina wouldn't know it until she read field reports of the disaster sometime later, the deluge dropped seven inches of rain in the span of just ten hours. What she did know, upon waking to a cloud shrouded sky the next morning was that the disaster haunting Murkwell had come in the night, and its repercussions were trembling against her magical senses; something was Wrong.

 

   Throwing on her clothes, Edwina skipped all of her morning routines and rushed to the Assembly Hall. Despite the early hour she hoped to find at least a few Alders present who could help to gather the rest. Time was pressing, the looming fate of the town nearly squashing Edwina flat with dread. As the door creaked open, and she strode through, she was relived to spot Viola Brosser and Edouard Lavigne at the long table, working silently on their own projects or correspondence.

 

   "We must hurry, call the other Alders to the Assembly Hall," she demanded as the heels of her field boots clacked across the hardwood floor.

 

   "Your pardon, Witchling, why must we rouse everyone from their beds when many barely slept through the awful racket of that storm?" Edouard spit back, agitated. 

 

   "This is it, the catastrophe. Don't you feel the pressure on your skin? That sensation of something dangerous, terrible, momentous, bearing down on your shoulders?" Edwina wrapped arms around herself, cupping and rubbing her elbows in distress. Every moment felt strung tight with pending doom.

 

   "No. The atmosphere still feels stifled by the damn clouds, but it was just a summer storm," Edourd grumped.

 

   Viola interrupted his dismissal, "We'll call the other Alders. We hired a Witch for the summer for a reason Edourd, it would be wise of us to listen when they speak. If Edwina believes the disaster is close, let's be ready for it instead of surprised."

 

   A trembling started in the pit of Edwina's stomach, the rumble building first within her body, and then being echoed through actual tremors felt through the soles of her feet. All three people's eyes widened in horror as the entire town began to shake on its stilt foundations. "Too late. It's now!" Edwina ran from the assembly hall and on instinct heads towards the edge of Lake Murkwell.

 

   Viola is only a few moments behind her, blindly following as Edwina runs across the shaking wooden planks of the town, towards the Eastern edge where she'd have a clear view out over the dark water. Panting, she pushed as hard as she could, and arrived just in time to watch as a massive landslide forced the slag heap from Alpha Minerals Mining Company under the waters of the lake. The rust, brown, and sickly yellow hill of topsoil, cast off minerals, and sulfurous layer that had been peeled away to reveal the kaolin clay the mining company was searching for now toppled in a rain drenched slurry into the clean water of Lake Murkwell.

 

   "Merde! The fish!" shouted Viola as she too witnessed the landslide. "They'll be poisoned."

 

   The red-brown stain of the slag heap washing into the lake was rapidly spreading, as Edwina tossed off her coat, velvet waistcoat, and flicked magic to remove her field boots instead of spending precious time fussing with the laces. Then she dove into the water, surfacing and swimming quickly towards the foulness of the slag. As she drew close, she began rapidly, almost carelessly casting. A water breathing spell so she could swim to the bottom of the lake. An earth moving spell, pushing on the fallen debris, forcing it to retreat back towards the shore. And finally a water controlling spell, making the clean water and all its denizens retreat from the Northern edge of the lake, keeping it out of contact with the contaminates as long as she could. Her bare feet dug down into the silt and seaweed of the lake bed, anchoring her deep into the presence of Terra as she begged all the Sea and Stars to help her accomplish this feat. The world trembled and shook again, even more violently than before, as Edwina used her earth moving spell to pull out chunks of bedrock and magically construct an enormous bulwark across the basin of the lake, cutting off the slag and fouled water from the remaining fresh water. When she finished, nearly one fourth of Lake Murkwell was separated from the rest by an earth and stone barricade.

 

   Then she collapsed, her spells faded, and water rushed back over where she lay on the lake bed.